Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/424

 464 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. iv. dec. 2, m who died when the railway was being built {ibid., xviii. (3) 236); and many others. Reference may also be made to the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vii. 371 ; xv. 104 ; xx. 379; and to ' N. & Q.,' 2"d S. ii. 449 ; 3"1 S. viii. 434 ; ix. 39, 126, 463 ; 5th S. vi. 66 ; Punjab Notes and Queries, i. 84 ; Folk-lore, vi. 28; Mackenzie, ' Manual of Kistna,' 192 ; Cox, Stuart, ' North Arcot,' ii. 348.

On the question of the possible origin of these marks Prof. E. B. Tylor has some remarks in his 'Researches into the Early History of Mankind,' 115 'seqq. William Crooke.

One of the most famous foot outlines or impressions in the world is the reputed one of Buddha on the summit of Adam s Peak, in Ceylon. It is described fully in Tennent's ' Ceylon ' and Skeen's ' Adam's Peak.' Donald Ferguson. Cutting the outline of a shoe-solo on the lead of a church tower is an old custom. In my experience it was commonly done with the point of the blade of a pocket knife, by a motion of the wrist producing a sort of " herring-bone " outline. Sometimes initials were cut inside the outline. Sir Simonds D'Ewes in his autobiography records that on 27 August, 1627, the compass of his wife's foot was cut upon the leads of King's Chapel, Cambridge, and heranns in a small escutcheon added within the compass. This sort of thing used to be done much as initials are cut in the bark of a tree, the temptation being in the softness of the lead. Lobuc. , On the roof of the tower of Winteringham Church, Lincolnshire, is a foot outline enclos- ing the name of Henry Kirke White, the poet, who spent some time at the rectory there. J. T. F. Durham. A gigantic footprint in a slab of grey stone in the Indian section of the ethno- logical gallery of the British Museum was a familiar object to me as a boy on occasional visits to ray grandauntat No. 51 opposite. The business premises were those of Tier nephew, the late Mr. W. Jeakes. In 1893 I noticed that some vandal had cut deep, striding foot- steps along the top of the earthwork on the Devil's Dike, Brighton, presumably with the view of enforcing the idle legend. Is not the footstep of William III. shown where he landed in Torbay ? The subject is an ex- pansive one. Thomas J. Jeakes. rVery numerous replies to the same effect are acKnowledged.] Compensation to Bryan, Lord Faibfax (9th S. iv. 399, 427).—The House of Commons passed a resolution on 18 June, 1808, that a sum not exceeding 2,000/. should be granted to Lieut-General Philip Martin as compensa- tion "for the loss sustained by him of the property to which he was entitled in the Province of Virginia in the United States of America, as representative of the late Robert, Lord Fairfax" ('Journals of the House of Commons,' vol. lxiii. p. 452). Lieut.-General Martin's petition is set out on pp. 276, 277 of the previous volume of the ' Journals.' I may point out to H. S. that Bryan, Lord Fairfax, died in 1802, so that compensation could not have been voted to him by the House of Commons in 1808. G. F. R. B. John Bull of French Origin (9th S. iii. 242, 378; iv. 56).—The London Guildhall Library has the three parts of 'Law is a Bottomless Pit' and the 'Calendar of Cha- racters,' with their full names in MS., all in one volume with the " Story of the St. Alb-ns Ghost, or the Apparition of Mother Haggy ; collected from the best Manuscripts," London, 1712, 16 pages. Arbuthnot seems to spell remarkably like us for one who still used a capital for every substantive, a practice, as Franklin explained, far more needed in English than in any other tongue. E. L. Garbett. The Name Swigg (9th S. iv. 329).—Bow- ditch's 'Suffolk Surnames'gives one entry of the above name: " Mr. Swigg is town clerk at Picton, C.W." It is probably a corrupt form of some German name. lerguson, in his ' Surnames as a Science,' 1884, gives in a list of names, the form of which is not so clear, O.G. Suigaut for Suidgaud, the sur- names Swigget, Sweetcock. John Radcliffe. May Road Well, Accrington (9th S. iv. 396). —In connexion with Mr. Boyle's note on this place it may be well to point out that there is on the boundary line between the townships of Burringham and East Butterwick. near here, a place which formerly went by the name of Merehole or Marehole. It is on the eastern side of the Trent, at a point where the river bank broke somewhere about a hundred and fifty years ago, and as a consequence a wide and deep hole was scooped out by the inrush of water. This hole was destroyed by my grandfather, Thomas Peacock, a little more than a century ago, when he caused a wide drain to be made, which still goes by his name. Mere, or Meere, signifies here a mark or boundary between one manor or parish