Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/123

 9- S. IV. Sept. 9, '99.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 215 is pol can kar an=" the pool of the slaughtered hundred," rather far-fetched and somewhat Kiplingesque. None of these names, so far as I know, fit the locality of that name in the parish of Gwinear. To me it seems highly probable that the word means " the pool round the corner," literally pol cyn horn, "the pool at the back of the corner," the last syllable showing the change of an initial c to h that often takes place in con- struction in Cornu-Celtic. The place bears out this definition if one realizes its position (up a side valley and at the back of the country) from the Gwithian district, which was a centre of " life " in Celtic days. Joseph Hambley Rowe, M.B., CM. This surname is taken from an estate in the parish of Gwinear, co. Cornwall. Polkin- horne or Polkinghorne is derived from pol SGadhelic), a pool or marsh; kin or king, rom cyning; noi-ne, a valley between hills curved like a horn—a pool or marsh in the horn-like valley belonging to the king. John Badcliffe. Your correspondent's question is answered in ' N. & Q.,' 3rd S. xii. 330, 445 ; 4th S. i. 83. Everard Home Coleman. 71, Brecknock Road. "Smoak"=to "twig," to "find OUT"(9th S. iii. 406 : iv. 78, 132).—My idea of smoke is that it refers to the same idea as is expressed in the proverb " No smoke without a fire." It may often have been easy to detect the presence of a party of men camping out by observing a light smoke ascending amongst trees. Thus to smoke is to observe signs of smoke, or to detect human presence, <fec. The phrase " Put that in your pipe and smoke it" is totally unconnected. It is a jeering retort, suggesting impossibility of reply. Having given an unanswerable argu- ment, you require your adversary to put it in his pipe and smoke it—if he can ; in other words, to digest it—if he can. My dictionary suggests that twig is Irish, from the Irish tuig, to comprehend. I have never met with any confutation, or with any confirmation, of this statement. Walter W. Skeat. The word " twig" is, I should think, the exact equivalent of this obsolete bit of slang. Its meaning seems, from the manner of its employment, to have been "take note of," " take scornful note of." The first appearance of the air balloon afforded much scope for comment and caricature, and many illus- trations of balloons occur in connexion with the tobacco papers of the end of the last cen- tury. You will find not only " Best Virginia under the Balloon " (in place of the usual 'TJest under the Sun "), with a couple of aeronauts rowing themselves through the air in their wicker car, bu t alsoa heavy smoker, whose pipe, applied instead of the furnace of Montgomery is found sufficient to retain the balloon in mid air. Hence you naturally slide to the double use of the word, and find illustrations labelled " Smoak the Balloon," and, a few years later, "Smoke the Balloon," without any such sug- gestion as in the previous print, the pipe being used in the latter cases for enjoyment and not as a calori/ere. J. Eliot Hodgkin. Are not your correspondents on a false scent? I suggest that to smoke is really to smoke out, as in the case of wasps, Ac. I have known smoke used for the purpose of discovering fugitives suspected to be in hiding in places one could not enter. C. C. B. The Antiquities and Topography of East London (9th S. iv. 145).—Asa resident in East London and a humble student of its anti- quities and topography, I heartily welcome Mr. Hale's note drawing attention to the subject, although I cannot agree with him either that there is a dearth of information or that the historical associations of the East-End are of less interest than those of other parts of Lon- don. When we remember that the present road from Aldgate pump through Whitechapel, Mile End, Bow, and Stratford is the old Roman road from London to Colchester, that King Alfred by his engineering diverted the waters of the river Lea and left the Danish fleet high and dry on Hackney Marshes, and that between Bow and Stratford the first stone bridge was erected in this country, we may be quite sure that we shall find the study of the history and the antiquities of East Loudon well worth pursuing. Although I am quite prepared to admit that of late years these subjects have not had the attention paid to them that they deserve, they have not been neglected. To prove that there is no lack of material, I would just mention the magnificent gift of the Tyssen Library a few years ago to the Hackney Vestry. This library, to which many additions have recently been made, is as complete as any local or muni- cipal library of reference could possibly be in the records of its own district; the student could not possibly find anywhere so rich a collection of books, manuscripts, registers of arms, «fec, volumes of newspaper cuttings, prints, and water-colour and other drawings as is here gathered, illustrating and record- ing the history of Hackney in particular and