Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/221

 9* s. ii. SEPT. 10, '98.] NOTES AND QUERIES,

213

at the Atlas near the Royal Exchange in Cornhil, 1689," and it may interest J. M. T. to know that although the preparative is mentioned several times in it "upon the drums beating the preparative" (p. 18), "the drums to beat the preparative " (pp. 74-6) the word flam does not occur in the book. Subsequently there came a time when military exercises were mostly gone through by beat of drum, a practice which was discontinued towards the close of the eighteenth century.

In Watson's ' Military Dictionary ' (my copy is the fifth edition, 1758) several drum beats are named, and the flam is said to be a signal for platoons to begin firing.

General Dundas's set of manoeuvres was first published in 1788, and, after some altera- tions had been made in it, the system was adopted for the army, by royal command, in 1792 'Rules and Regulations,' one volume, quarto. I have not a copy, but I have Reide's ' Treatise on the Present Military Discipline ' (London, 1798), which says that "the rules laid down in the book published by authority are not sufficiently explanatory." The new manual and platoon exercises are described, and the description is preceded by the remark that " all signals by beat of drum are now abolished ; the words are given by the exer- cising officer." Chap. iv. is headed " Method of performing the Eighteen Manoeuvres ordered for a Review," and chap. v. gives the words of command. The pamphlet referred to by J. M. T. may hav? been an unofficial exposi- tion published soon after the issue of the new system, but Reide makes no allusion to it.

In James's ' Dictionary,' 1804, it is said that the practice of a battalion going through evolutions by the flam has been laid aside, and it has been particularly ordered that all be by specific words of command.

My recollections of the service, dating back to forty-three years ago, do not confirm those of J. M. T. as to bugle sounds for each of the motions of the manual and platoon exercises ; but it may have been the practice in some corps, for in those days much was left to the discretion (and the caprice) of the colonel.

W. S.

This term is still used by the drummers in the Foot Guards, and probably in the line regiments. To explain it fully would be too technical, and take up too much of the space of ' N. & Q.' It consists of a few beats on the side-drum, in peculiar rhythm, known as the "open flam" or the "close flam," on which the non-commissioned officers and men on parade move as instructed. Let any one curious on the point stand outside the railings of the barracks in Birdcage Walk for an hour

or two on any fine afternoon, and he will hear the flam I often have.

WALTER HAMILTON.

"TATA " (9 th S. ii. 88). Haines ('Manual of Brasses,' p. 56) reads the fragmentary ending of the Wilcotes brass :

avit alicia fata

Ossa dabantur humo repetebat spirit[us astra ?1

the bracketed portion being of course his conjectural reading. Whether he has read the word after " Alicia " correctly or not, one can hardly doubt the epitaphist's intention to write " fata." The sense seems to require, "Alice met her death. Her bones were laid in the grave, her spirit went upwards." As to the word before " Alicia," one might con- jecture "superavit" or " peragravit," which latter word occurs on the brass of Ele Bowet at Wrentham, Suffolk, 1400. C. DEEDES. Brighton.

This inscription reminds me of a passage in Bede, to which Mr. E. A. Freeman directed my attention as being the earliest instance he knew of the bride's pet name being in- cluded in a notice of the marriage. It relates to Edwin of North umbria "having taken to wife Ethelberga, otherwise called Tate, daughter to King Ethelbert " (' Ecclesiastical History,' bk. ii. c. 9). Mr. Robert Ferguson devotes some pages to the consideration of Tate and its variants in ' English Surnames and their Place in the Teutonic Family' (1858). He thinks the original import of the word was that of smallness, and that it is one of those "in which the sense of love, value, and preciousness is expressed by the sense of diminution " (p. 238). I await with interest what we may learn from corre- spondents about " Alicia tata."

ST. SWITHIN.

'BRADSHAW'S RAILWAY GUIDE' (9 th S. ii. 164). In the Athenaeum for 17 January, 1874, will be found a letter from Mr. Kay, 'Who in- vented Bradshaw ? ' and on 24 January a reply from Mr. Henry Adams, the eldest son of Mr. William James Adams (not "Jones Adams," as in the ' D.N.B.'), giving full par- ticulars as to the origin of the ' Guide.'

In the notice of George Bradshaw which appears in the ' Dictionary of National Bio- graphy,' vol. vi. p. 175, Mr. G. C. Boase states it would appear that Mr. Adams, who was the London agent for 'Bradshaw's Railway Companion,' was "the first to suggest the idea of a regular monthly book at a lower price as an improvement on the ' Companion.' This idea was taken up by Bradshaw, and the result was the appearance, in December, 1841,