Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/148

 236 NOTES AND QUERIES. (•» s. iv. SEPT. ie, m Mr. John Morley, M.P., a political disciple and close friend or Mill, said in the House of Commons, 1890:— "The question of unearned increment will have to be faced before many years are over. It is un- endurable that great increments which have not been earned, by those to whom they accrue, but have been formed by the industry of the community, should be absorbed by those who have contributed nothing to that increase." The policy indicated, however, is advocated in Adam Smith, though the term itself may have come to Mill through Bentham, or the elder Mill, or Ricardo. Mr. W. L. Courtney, in his ' Life of Mill' (" Great Writers Series "), alludes to " the unearned increment," and quotes the term as being "a direct deduction [by Mill! from Ricardo's theory of rent" (p. 99). Mr. W. H. Dawson has a small book entitled 'The Unearned Increment; or, Reap- ing without Sowing' (Sonnenschein). Here the term is, of course, often used, sometimes "quoted," and sometimes not. I, however, do not see that the originator is mentioned. J. W. M. GIBBS. Mr. LeckyC Democracy and Liberty,'i. 176) says of this claptrap expression : " Another doctrine which, in different forms, has spread widely through public opinion is that of Mill about 'unearned increment.'" Mill based on it his scheme for the heavy taxation of landed property, but I do not find the actual ex- pression in his ' Political Economy.' EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A. Hastings. "KAROO" (9th S. iv. 105, 156).—CANON TAYLOR refers me to a note of his own (8th S. v. 366), from which I gather that he sup- ports with his high authority the etymology I criticized in my last communication. I shall feel obliged if he will tell me from what source he obtained it. Hitherto I have only seen it in dictionaries. I presume it is from some book of travel. I am still inclined to look upon it as a mere guess, but much depends on the status of the first writer who suggested it. Has CANON TAYLOR any evi- dence to justify his assertion that the Boers called the Karoo by the Hottentot word for hard ? There is another point which it might be well to decide. How was Karoo originally pronounced? At present,in English, itsounds like the surname Carew. How do the Cape Dutch pronounce it? Do they accent tne final as we do? How do they sound the double vowel ? In the Dutch language oo is a long o; therefore, if the word came through Dutch into English, the oldest pronunciation would be Karro (like the French word car- reau), and if my memory serves me rightly Darwin spells it thus. The spelling Jfarusa of the Hottentot word I find in Henry Tin- dall's ' Grammar and Vocabulary of the Hot- tentot Language' (Cape Town, 1857, p. 82). JAMES PL ATT, Jun. "GODBROTHER" (9th S. iv. 167).—This is a misspelling for good brother, meaning brother- in-law. The testatrix had evidently married a cousin, hence her husband's brother was a "cozen and godbrother." In Scotland the ordinary terra for a brother-in-law is good- brother. The corresponding words are used for father-, mother-, and sister- in-law. J. G. WALLACE-JAMES, M.B. Haddington, N.B. If this word has the same significance as " goodbrother," which seems very probable, a modern instance of its use will be found in Stevenson's 'Catriona': "The lady had branched some while before from Alan's stomach to the case of a goodbrother of her own in Aberlady," &c.; and again, " A fine. canty, friendly, cracky man, that was real ta'en up about the goodbrother " (chap. xii.). Would it not mean one having the same godfather? GEORGE MARSHALL. Sefton Park, Liverpool. LANGTOFT'S ' CHRONICLE ' (9th S. iv. 147).— It is pleasant to see MR. WHITWELL'S note and inquiry regarding the MSS. of a chronicle which, from its peculiar fulness and in many respects exceptional information on matters in the North, possesses in my judgment an importance far higher than that usually con- ceded to it for the history of the war of independence and the times of Edward I. So far as I am aware the Arundel MS. has not been printed. Mr. Thomas Wright—to whom we owe so much excellent and serviceable record work that the incompleteness of some of it stands in no need of pleading excuses— nearly thirty years before editing the " Rolls Series " edition of Langtoft, had collated quite a number of the instances of the curious and sarcastic vernacular ryme corvee directed often against the Scots. His notes of these col- lations are to be found in his Camden Society volume, published in 1839, 'The Political Songs of England,' pp. 391 et seq. The passage which MR. WHITWELL has transcribed from the Fairfax MS. in the Bodleian he will find there collated in full with the Arundel MS. No doubt there are many of us who would appreciate any unpublished variant readings from either the two MSS. cited. I knew an old worthy once who was prone to declare as an axiom of conduct that "Nocht beats ceevilality." It occurs to me to remark that Langtoft s tailed rimes do not err on the side