Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/52

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

n. JULY ie,

Wardress. " The prisoner's daughter was brough up in the custody of a wardress. Ibid., 23 May 1896, p. 8, col. 5.

Witnessess. " If a man be a witness, a womar must necessarily be a witnessess." Tho. Nugent trans, of ' Hist, of Friar Gerund,' 1772, vol. i. p. 144

Workeress. " The new wasps thus producer are all workers, or rather workeresses. P. M. Duncan, ' Transformations of Insects,' i>. 233.

Writrix. See Geniwess.

EDWARD PEACOCK.

ANGEL AND LONDON AS SURNAMES. One of your correspondents says (ante, p. 17) he has once or twice met with Angell as a Christian name, doubtless derived, as in the case of John Angell James, author of 'The Anxious Inquirer,' from a surname. Angel as a surname probably belongs to the same class as Swan, Bull, Bell, Rose, and perhaps Bush, which are no doubt derived from the signs of houses of residence. We know that the Angel was a common sign for shops and inns. MR. PEACOCK considers that the crea- tion of a surname in quite modern times is worthy of note (ante, p. 6). Of this the fore- going are probably instances, as I can find no trace of them in Tudor times, but I may add another instance certainly quite recent. In a Buckinghamshire village I knew a man bearing the name of London. Inquiring how he came to be so called, I found that in his youth he was the only man in the village who had travelled as far as the capital, and hence had got the name or nickname of Jack Lunnon. This, I need hardly say, was before the days of railways. ISAAC TAYLOR.

"GIVING THE DOR" = BAMBOOZLING OR HOAX- ING. This phrase is mentioned by Scott in 'The Fortunes of Nigel,' chap, xviii. In Kingsley's ' Westward Ho ! ' chap, ii., it seems to be used in the sense of the collo- quialism being "one too many for," or, as Mrs. Hardcastle puts it, being "too hard for the philosopher." See 'She Stoops to Conquer,' Act I v. JONATHAN BOUCHIER. [See ' H. E. D.' under 'Dor.']

ABORIGINAL FIRE CEREMONIES. The follow- ing extract from the Melbourne Argus of 24 May is so interesting to folk-lorists and so curious in itself that it seems to deserve a place in 'N. & Q.':

" There was an interesting discussion at the last nieeting of the Otago Institute on the fire ceremony in Fiji. Drs. Hocken and Colquhoun, of Dunedin, have just returned from a trip to the islands, and while there they had an opportunity of watching the ceremony, which was described by Dr. Hocken. The ceremony is now seldom performed, and the power, so far as Fiji is concerned, appears to be confined to a family resident on Mbenga, an islet lying twenty miles south of Suva. These people,

almost nude and with bare feet, walk quickly and unharmed across and among the stones, made white- hot, forming the pavement of the cooking oven. An attempt was made to register the heat, but when the thermometer had been placed for a few seconds about 4ft. or 5ft. above the stones it had to be withdrawn, as the solder of the tin covering began to melt. The thermometer then registered 282, and Dr. Hocken estimates that the range was over 400. The fire-walkers, seven or eight in number, then approached, and in single file walked leisurely across and around the oven. The leader was a second or two under half a minute on the stones. Then heaps of the soft and succulent leaves of the hibiscus were thrown into the oven, causing clouds of steam, and upon the leaves and within the steam the natives sat or stood. The men were carefully examined by the two doctors, both before and after the ceremony. The fire had not affected the simple articles of dress they wore. The soles of their feet were not thick or leathery. The men showed no symptoms of distress, and their pulse was unaffected. The soles of the feet were not in the least blistered. Simple tests made failed to show that there had been any special preparation. Both doctors, while denying anything miraculous about the experiment, xpressed themselves unable to form any scientific xplanation of the matter."

ALEX. LEEPER.

Trinity College, Melbourne.

MARBLE SLAB IN ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH- YARD. My old friend the late Mr. Henry Poole, for many years the master mason to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, in ose hands was placed nearly the whole of the Abbey, made many discoveries in its vicinity, few of which were of more interest than the one which I feel it but right and proper to place upon record in the pages of N. & Q.' This slab of marble is easily seen )y any one who looks for it, being, in the anguage of my old friend, situated " at the ntersection of two lines, one being the pro- ongation of the axis of the parish church, of the transepts of the Abbey." This was its )osition some few years ago, since which it las been shifted a few feet further west, as t was in the way when the pathways were 'ormed, and is now in contact with the stone sdging which bounds the greensward. Mr. oole records that he had it in his knowledge ' from boyhood," and he then goes on to say .hat it was the "only instance of white marble among the many hundreds of ordinary he whole surface," and furthermore that it md always been "believed to be a common gravestone, having only initial letters." In " 881 a determination was arrived at to cover ip all the gravestones, when a complete xamination of this slab took place, resulting n the confirmation of the opinion that it
 * he work having to be done to the fabric of
 * he other being the prolongation of the axis
 * ravestones which then so closely covered