Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/457

 s. xii. DEC-. 5,1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

449

are : " Argent, on a cross sable between fou sea aylets of the second, beaked and leggec gules, five bezants"; the crest, "on a corone a sea aylet,' as in the arras. So far I havi not discovered what a sea aylet is, but Strype gives the bishop's arms :

"Argent, a cross sable between four choughs o the same, whence some derive the name Ailmar quasi ah Alite. de Mari, but the chough is no sea fowl. The reason of which bearing may be perhaps conjectured, from the relation some of the family they say, bore to a Duke of Cornwall, from whence for crest, they bear on a Ducal Coronet a Cornish Chough's head and neck."

The Irish Aylmers bear the same arms, with the curious motto "Hallelujah." How did the Aylmer baronetcy originate 1

JAMES HOOPER. Norwich.

CAPSICUM. It is stated in the 'Encyclo- paedia Britannica ' that the annual or common capsicum (G. annuum) was brought to Europe from America by the Spaniards, and was grown in England in 1548. What is the authority for the latter statement 1 ? I also find in Monardes's ' De Simplicibus Medi- camentis ex Occidentali India delatis, quorum in medicina usus est ; (Antwerp, 1574), that

"Capsicum hoc, sen Piper Indicum (Americum potius) diligentissime colitur tota Castella [in Castillo] cum ab hortulanis, turn a mulieribus in medium suarum pensilibus hortis. Etenim utuntur per totum annum cum virente, turn sicco pro con- dimento et pipere."

Is the capsicum still grown and used to any great extent in Spain? I mean the pimiento dulce eaten raw or pickled.

L. L. K.

WANT OF UNIFORMITY IN EARLY MEASURES OF CAPACITY.

(9 th S. xii. 344.)

THE explanation of the discrepancies of measure in the letter from the Duke of Rutland's steward is that the last was not an English legal measure of capacity. The English corn-measures end with the quarter that is the quarter of a short, or 2,000 lb., ton of wheat the old English and the present North American ton. When our hundred- weight was so unfortunately raised to 112 lb. in order to make it coincide approximately with the heavier foreign hundredweights, the chaldron, which was the measure of a ton of wheat, was raised from 32 to 36 bushels, and this measure, now of 4^ quarters, became much less used. The Wisbeach last of 18 coombs, or 9 quarters, was a double long-

chaldron, about two long tons. If we remember that a cubic foot contains 1,000 ounces of water, equal to 50 pints, 2 cubic feet are equal to 100 pints, or pounds of wheat (that is our old hundredweight re- turned from North America as the cental), and 40 cubic feet, the usual cargo-measure- ment ton, is the space occupied by a North American ton of wheat of four quarters, or twenty centals. But there is another ship- ton, that of gross tonnage, by which ships are measured for registration. It is 100 cubic feet, that is the space occupied by 10 quarters of wheat. This is the true last, a ship measure, varying in the case of foreign ships. The last which turned out 10| bushels is that used in Hanover and Bremen, which may have influenced the English trade unit. The Norfolk bushel, " a pint bigger than that in Cambridgeshire," only differs by 1 in 64, a less quantity than the letter asserts to be lost by a second measurement. It was, perhaps, due to the local use of the Winchester corn- gallon, about 1J per cent, larger than the true corn-gallon.

There have not been for many years past any discrepancies in the measures of the United Kingdom. There are, of course, trade and local units perfectly well known to those in the business, just as there are in the birth- place of the metric system. I have before me a recent French newspaper where the measurement of land advertised for sale or ease is given in vergees, or local roods, and the price of apples is quoted by the barattee, or churnful. The people concerned under- itand perfectly what is meant, and the local tuthorities are wise enough not to interfere.

As to the adoption of the metric system, t has been legal with us for years, but, to
 * he great wrath of its advocates, too often

persons with small knowledge of their own ystem, no one will use it, and so they pro- pose that we shall be made to use it, and our wn system abolished. It is an old story : irst they want toleration for their system in ,he name of our principles ; but, the system mce admitted, they want to drive out our ystem in the name of their principles.

EDWARD NICHOLSON.

Liverpool.

LONG LEASE (9 th S. xii. 25, 134, 193, 234). A. note as to long leases in Scotland may be )f some interest. In this part of the country eases of whatever length have always been ffectual against the grantor and his heirs, before 1857 it was necessary that they should lave a definite period and a definite rent, in >rder to be effectual against a singular sue-