Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/435

 9* S. IV. Dec. 9, '99.] 471 NOTES AND QUERIES. LONDON, SATURDAY, DEC UMBER 9. 1899. CONTENTS. —No. 102. NOTES:-The Picket, 471—Some Record Book-Prices, 472— Cricket l>eteen Female Teams—Captain Cuttle Motto for 'N. k Q.,' 174—"Boiled" Butter — "Soy "—Cure for Warts—" Kisses in cups "—Curiosities of Collaboration, 475—Future of Books and Bookmen— " Gentlemen and Ladles"— Worcester Dialect—"Blot" at Backgammon— —Boundary Stones in Open Fields, 476. QUERIES : — " Hoastik dries " — " Hander " — Eastern Boundary Line of Europe—Hannah Lee—Henry Stacey— Thomas Fitz-ltandolph—Boxing Day—Parody on Tenny- son's 'Princess' — Stafford Family, 477—St. Mildred's, Poultry—Greek Students at Oxford — Thomas Brooks- Lincolnshire Sayings — Hashdall — " Practical Floricul- turist"—Nannau Motto —Entomological, 178—■' A pickled rope"—"Dozzil" or "Dossil" — Rev. R. Walter —Rev. F. Fotherby—Prefaces, 479. REPLIES:—Place-name Oxford, 179-No. 17, Fleet Street, 481—Parish Registers—Cinnamon of the Ancients, 482— "Ass bearing books "—St. Jordan -Welsh MS. Pedigrees —Surname Jekyll, 483—Riming Warning to Book-lmr- rowers—"Spun butter"—Whorwood Family—"Pins"— Bear and Ragged Staff, 484-B. Heath, of Exeter—" Inde- baudias "—"Bard wif "—Antiquities of East London— " Fetch," 485-Irish Soldiers at the Battle of the Boyne— Tile Detavals—Weather-lore : Forecasting—Clerks of the Board of Green Cloth, 486—"The starry Galileo" — Double-name Signatures for Peers—The Moutreux Inscrip- tion, 487 — " King of Bantam "—" Ingate "—" Harateen " —Sir E. W. Brecknock—"To mend the fire"—Origin of "Tips "—Mr. Thoms's Library, 488. NOTES ON BOOKS:—Tuer's 'Old-Fashioned Children's Books'—Phil May's 'Fifty Unpublished Pen-and-ink Sketches '—Reviews and Magazines. Notices to Correspondents. grits. THE TICKET. Of old military punishments long in use in our army the picket is perhaps the one about which least is generally known nowa- days. It was a punishment in common use in cavalry, and derived its name from the French* word piquet, signifying a stake, a short wooden peg, such as was used for tethering horses in a cavalry encampment, being placed for the culprit's foot. The earliest mention of this punishment in our army is in a royal proclamation of 1690: " If a trooper he shall stand three several times on the Picquett." In a military dictionary of 1702 "picket, or piquet," has the following among other explanations :— " Pickets are also stakes drove into the ground, by the tents of the Horse in the field to tye their horses to Horsemen that have committed any considerable offence are sentenced to stand upon the Picket, which is to have one hand ty'd up as high as it can stretch, as lie stands upon his toes of one foot upon a little stake drove into the ground for that purpose j so that they neither stand nor hang, nor can they change feet to ease themselves." The number of times an offender was to undergo this punishment, and the length of time on each occasion, varied according to the magnitude of the offence or the severity of the officers making the award. Littre has; " Sorte de punition militairo qui consistait a passer deux heures debout, uu pied sur un piquet." This must refer to French cavalry before the Kevolution. The time was never so long in the British army. There is an illustration at p. 185 of Fleming's ' Deutsche Soldat,' 1726, which shows both arms upraised and both hands fastened together in one ring near the top of a stout pillar or post, and a stake placed for each foot; but these forms were not customary in our army. The de- scription in the dictionary of 1702 is repeated in Watson's 'Dictionary' of 1758. An "Old Officer," writing in 1761, says that picketing is one of the punishments inflicted by officers without the sentence of a court-martial, and only awarded for petty crimes, such as coming to the field of exercise five minutes later than his comrades, or overstaying as many minutes the leave given him by his officer when on guard ('Cautions and Advices'). Another writer, about the same date, explains that the picket is one of the minor military punish- ments now in use for faults as distinguished from crimes. Capt. Simes, in his ' Military Medley,' second edition, 1768, describes the picket as "a stake of about nine or ten inches high, fixed in the ground, and standing upright, to punish men for offences that do not deserve death, by placing the criminal's foot upon it, and tying up his hand to a ring above his head." Capt. Smith, in his 'Military Dictionary,' 1779, says that the picket is a punishment " where a soldier stands with one foot upon a sharp-pointed stake : the time of his standing is limited according to the offence." Capt. Grose, in his ' Military Antiquities,' vol. ii. p. 200, 1788, states that the picket "was chiefly used by the cavalry and artillery, and in the former often inflicted by the commanding officer, without the sentence of a court-martial A long post being driven into the ground, the de- linquent was ordered to mount a stool near it, when his right hand was fastened to a hook in the post by a noose round his wrist, drawn up as high as it could be stretched ; a stump, the height of the stool, with its end cut to a round and blunt point, was then driven into the ground near the post before mentioned, and the stool being taken away, the bare heel of the sufferer was made to rest on this stump, which though it did not break the skin, put him to great torture ; the only means of mitigation was by resting his weight on his wrist, the pain of which soon became intolerable. Soldiers were fre- quently sentenced to stand on the picket for a quarter of an hour. This has been for some time left off, it having lamed and ruptured many soldiers." It is only too true that many old military punishments were abandonee! much more because of their consequences in rendering