Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/173

 9 th S. II. AUG. 27, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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in the parish, in pursuance of an old custom, each picked up a sixpenny piece which had been laid on one of the tombstones. A few years ago, when there was a danger that the custom would lapse, Mr. J. W. Butterworth, of Fleet Street, invested a sum suffi- cient to ensure its continuance. Yesterday the ceremony took place shortly after eleven o'clock, by which time the 21 widows, one 87 years of age and several over 80, were ranged in a semicircle round the tombstone. Some of them had considerable difficulty in stooping to pick up the sixpence, and Mr. B. Turner, the churchwarden, who presided, offered to hand the money to them, but they made it a point of honour to pick up the money themselves. A hot cross bun was also given to each. This year Mrs. Jarrett, of Harrogate, again sent a sum of money sufficient to give each of the widows half-a- crown. She also presented each with a shawl which she had knitted."

H. ANDREWS.

" RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT." According to Mr. Egerton (' History of Colonial Policy,' p. 304), this phrase, now so common, was first used in 1829. In that year it occurs in a petition from Upper Canada presented to Parliament. ISAAC TAYLOR.

SEDAN CHAIRS IN SCOTLAND. In the Athenceum of 23 July (p. 133) a reviewer of ' Audubon and his Journals ' writes :

"Sedan chairs seem to have lingered long in Edinburgh, for on March 4th, 1827, he speaks of being trundled in one to church to hear Sydney Smith preach."

The chairs were probably used in Edinburgh at a later date, and they were certainly fashionable in other Scottish centres at least thirty years after Audubon listened to" the witty Edinburgh divine. From forty to fifty years ago it was quite common to find ladies of distinction, in certain provincial centres of Scotland, conveyed to evening parties in sedan chairs. For an important function there used to be, in small communi- ties, keen competition to secure the one avail- able chair. THOMAS BAYNE.

Helensburgh, N.B.

RAPE, A DIVISION OF A COUNTY. We are indebted to the evening press for much useful information, political and otherwise, but it is open to doubt whether the following extract from the Echo of 26 July is of any use to anybody :

" In Sussex there exists a land division peculiar to that county, viz., rapes. Sussex is divided into six rapes, Hastings, Pevensey, Lewes, Bramber, Arundel, and Chichestcr. The name is said to signify land divided by a rope.'

If the sub-editor of the Echo had had Prof. Skeat's 'Concise Etymological Dictionary' by his side, he might have saved himself from the promulgation of such a ridiculous origin as he has ventured on, and would have

informed his readers that the word is Scandi- navian, from the Icelandic kreppen, a district, the probable origin being a share.

JOHN HEBB. Canonbury Mansions, N.

ROBERT, LORD BROOKE. On a recent visit to St. Mary's Church, Warwick, I looked, but in vain, for some monumental record or in- scription to the memory of this Parliamen- tarian general, who fell when besieging Lichfield Close in 1643. Sir Walter Scott has alluded to him in a well-known passage in ' Marrnion,' arid a note (canto vi. stanza 36) on the passage adds that Sir John Gill, as he is always persistently called, instead of Gell, of Hopton, was associated with Lord Brooke in the siege. Dr. Smith, in one of his sermons, vol. i. 185, thus refers to his death : " Immedi- ately after which he was shot in the forehead by a deaf and dumb man." He had held a command under the Earl of Essex at the battle of Edgehill in the preceding year, 1642, and was no doubt a rising ana important man amongst the Parliamentarians. At the time of his death he was aged thirty- four. One of his sons, who succeeded to the title, was, it is curious to note, one of the six Commissioners appointed by the House of Lords to negotiate the return of Charles II., in company with six members of the House of Commons.

There is an engraved portrait of Lord Brooke in Lodge's ' Portraits,' said to be from the original picture at Warwick Castle, but no painter's name is given. His breastplate is also preserved at the same place.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

JEREMY BENTHAM'S UNFULFILLED PRO- PHECY. Jeremy Bentham in 1793 addressed a pamphlet, with the title ' Emancipate your Colonies,' to the French National Convention. This pamphlet was again issued in 1829, with a postscript to this effect :

" In regard to Australia, it is in my eyes prepon- derantly probable that, long before this century is at an end, the settlements in that vast and distant country will, all of them, have emancipated them- selves, changing the government from a dependency on the English monarchy into a representative democracy."

This unfulfilled prophecy of the old Utili- tarian philosopher would form an excellent text for a Quarterly fieview article giving an historical survey of British colonial policy from the days of Canning to the days of Chamberlain. As, however, all political references are strictly tabooed in the impar- tial pages of ' N. & Q.,' it will be sufficient commentary here on the prediction to point