Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/513

 9- s. xii. DEC. 26, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

505

These forms are cognate, but neither of them can be the immediate source of ours, because both the dialects mentioned are Canadian, and were quite unknown to Smith and his English contemporaries. The only people who at that early date came into contact with these two dialects were the French. Specimens of Algonkin were published by Lescarbot, 1612, and of Knisteneaux by Champlain, 1632, but no loan-word from either passed into English until after our acquisition of Canada. JAS. PLATT, Jun.

TICKLING TROUT. (See ' Shakespeariana,' ante, p. 422.) The practice of water poach- ing and taking fish by tickling is common enough, and many a man has got "seven days' hard " for it. It is not every man who can take fish in this way, and there does not seem to be much of the art of tickling about the process. For a man engaged in tickling works his way up stream, and when he sees a tail sticking put from the roots, he makes a sudden grab with both hands, and, if capable, lands his trout without actual tickling a process which would be all too slow.

THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

" TOP SPIT." On a board upon an estate in the further south of London, now being opened up for building purposes, a notice appears, " Splendid Top Spit for Sale." ^ The 'Century Dictionary' gives, as "provincial English," spit, as meaning earth to the depth of a spade ; but this seems a development or variant and within the metropolitan area.

A. F. R.

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

CHRISTMASTIDE FOLK-LORE. "A mince-pie eaten in a different house on each night of the Twelves* (not twelve mince-pies eaten before Christmas) ensures twelve lucky months." So says Mr. E. K. Chambers in 'The Mediaeval Stage,' vol. i. p. 269, foot- note 2. What authority has this writer, who gives chapter and verse for most of his state- ments, for the parenthetical contradiction of a theory which has probably as good a foundation* as the one which he is pleased to favour 1

Speaking of the " first foot " on JS T ew Year s Day, who, as a rule, is preferred of the male

Days between Christmas Day and the Epiphany.

sex, Mr. Chambers makes the interesting: remark : u A Bohemian parallel enables me to explain [the requirement] of masculinity by the belief in the influence of the sex of the ' first foot ' upon that of the cattle to be born during the year" (p. 270). Neverthe- less, I think farmers on the whole prefer " sheeders " to " heders," and a wye-calf to a bull. ST. S WITHIN.

JOHN WAINWRIGHT, BARON OF THE EX- CHEQUER IN IRELAND. John Wainwright, of Middlesex, Fellow of All Souls', Oxford, 1635, B.C.L. 1639, D.C.L. 1650, Chancellor of Ches- ter 1650, forfeited his Fellowship by marriage 1651. His son Thomas, Fellow of All Souls' 1672, B.C.L. 1676, D.C.L. 1682, Chancellor of Chester 1682, married Rebecca Jackson at St. Dunstan's, Stepney, 14 September, 1686,. and died of cancer early in October, 1720.. He had two sons, the younger of whom,. Thomas, died a student of Christ Church, 9 August, 1721, and was buried in the south aisle of Christ Church Cathedral. The elder, John, entered Westminster School in 1703, matriculated at Christ Church in 1708, be- came M.A. 1715, was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1716, and was admitted to- Lincoln's Inn 1720. About this time he became secretary to the Prince of Wales. In October, 1726, he married Mistress Anne Parsons, youngest sister to Humphrey Par- sons, Esq., one of the members of Parliament for the City of London. In 1732 he was appointed a Baron of the Exchequer in. Ireland, which office he held at his death,. 15 April, 1741. Had he any children ; and if so, what was their history 1

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

HERALDIC CHINA. Among the many coun- terfeits or imitations of antique objects e.g., snuftboxes, silver toys, glass, miniatures, &c. with which shops are flooded (the origin of which would be found, I fancy, in Holland), china and heraldic china form a large part. Collectors, and even casual persons who only glance at such objects, must have noticed how frequently the same arms are to be found on various pieces. It is as to one of such decorations I wish to inquire. A few years ago there appeared all at once in many shop windows of dealers in antiques very many pieces of apparently Lowestoft, bearing the following arms, which I hope I am correctly describing : Party per pale, dexter, Erin., on a chief gules two trefoils or ; sinister, ba., three horses' heads erased proper (brown); crest, an arm and dexter hand, the fingers closed. I cannot certainly trace these arms through Papworth, though they may be