Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/90

 186 NOTES AND QUERIES. p* s. iv. sept. 2, as the Chartist riots in 1839 were termed. He will, however, be known to posterity by his connexion with bells and bellringing. He commenced as a ringer in Leigh Parish Church in 1827, when fifteen years old, and for upwards of seventy years con- tinued to fill that position. For forty-one years he rang the heavy No. 7 bell. In 1830 he rang the peal for the funeral of George IV., and subsequently he rang for the coronation and burial of William IV., and the accession, coronation, 1887 jubilee, and 1897 diamond jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen. He was the last of the ringers who rang at the birth of the late Lord Lilford, and he also rang the peals on the occasion of the funerals of old Squire With- ington, father of the present squire; and of Lord Frederick Cavendish, who, it may be remembered, was murdered in Phoenix Park, Dublin, about fifteen years ago. In fact he took part in almost all the great events that were celebrated by the ringing of peals. Singularly enough he had re- sided for fifty-four years in the house where he died, and had been a tenant of the same landlord for sixty-three years." W. D. Pink. Leigh, Lancashire. Error in Reclus.—If 'N. & Q.' is not above chronicling errors for the guidance of those concerned in bringing out fresh editions, there is one of them to be found in Reclus's 'Geographie Universelle,' torn. xiv. p. 816, where the following passage occurs:— " En 1841 la Nouvelle - Zelande, cessant d'etre consideree comme une dependance politique de New South Wales, prit le titre de colonie dis- tincte, et douze annees plus tard, alors que sa population blanche s'elevait deja a une trentaine de mille personnes, elle prit place au nombre des Etats constitutionnels de l'empire colonial anglais. Bientot apres en 1837 on decouvrit les mines d'or qui ont fait la fortune de la Nouvelle-Zelando." It may save a future editor some trouble to inform him that the goldfields in New Zea- land were discovered in 1861. T. P. Armstrong. Putney. The Name of Dreyfus.—I think the fol- lowing cutting is worthy of being enshrined in the columns of ' N. & Q.':— " Many persons will be interested (says the Daily News), now that the name of Dreyfus is upon all tongues, to learn the curious origin of this surname, which is so widely extended amongst the Jews of France, Germany, and Switzerland. It arose in Elsass in the form of 'Trevus.' Its present form is due to a strange popular misunderstanding. In the year 1555, when the persecution of the Jews took a new start in nearly all the States of Ger- many, the Elector Palatine, Johann II., and his neighbour the Archbishop-Elector Johann of Trier, agreed to expel all the Jews from their dominions. The Jewish fugitives from Trier sought a new home, for the most part, in Elsass. The Jews of that time, faithful to their ancient customs, had not adopted the use of hereditary surnames, which had been common amongst their Christian neighbours in Ger- many for more than two centuries. Hence the municipal and communal authorities throughout Elsass entered the names of one and all the Hebrew immigrants as 'Treviranus' (that is, 'The man from Trier,' the Latin Treviri). The T of the official scribe was altered in the popular dialect to the hard D. and the official abbreviation ' Trevus' in the local registers became ' Dreyfus.' Thus every Jewish exile from Trier had to accept, nolens volens, the surname of Dreyfus. There is no ground what- ever for the various ingenious and fanciful deriva- tions of the name from 'Three Foot'(Drei Fuss), 'Tripod.'" Isaac Taylor. Curtain = Omentum.—I am told butchers use the word curtain in that sense, but I find no reference to the fact either in the ' H.E.D.' or the ' E.D.D.' St. Swithin. Trade = Road. — From a very interesting paper on the parish church and parish anti- quities of Westham, in Sussex, written by the Rev. Howard Hopley, which appears in the Church Monthly for August, I cut the following :— " Among [archaic words used in the neighbour- hood of Westham] is the word trade in the sense of a way or road; the roads across Pevensey Marsh are called ' trades.' You call at a cottage : ' Well, Mrs. Blank, how is your husband to-day?' 'O, sir, he's pretty ord'nary; he's gone to work on the Wartling Trade,' which means he is breaking stones or mending ' dicks' (ditches) on the road to Wart- ling. The survival of this word is interesting when you come to remember that our word trade, in the common acceptance of it, is derived from the road (trade) and from the business carried on by means of it." I do not recollect seeing any notice of this archaic word in ' N. & Q.,' and Mr. Hopley's little contribution to Sussex dialect words may perhaps interest some of its readers. R. Clark. 13, Stanhope Road, Walthamstow. Perth in the Sixteenth Century.—The following description of Perth in the life of Patrick Adamsou, Archbishop of St. Andrews, by Thomas Volusenus, J.C., will prove inter- esting to the citizens of that ancient burgh:— " Patricius Adamsonus, natione Scotus, cunctis naturas dotibus insignitus, Parentibus ingenuis & stirpe honesta natus, ad Taiim amnem arocrnis- simum, ac regni Scotise facile maximum, anno salutis Christianas supra millesimum quingentesimo triee- simo sexto, circa Idus Martias, in urbe Perthitotius regni clarissima, & in ipso medio sita, adspectu atque situ multo jucundissima, propter aeris tem- periem, prospectura undique amcenum, vallibus, fluvio navigabili & naviculis conspicuum, frugum, pecudis, salmonum, aliorumque piscium abun- dantiam accolis apprimd utilem; naud procul a Scona, Monastcrio olim insigni, ubi sita fuit Cathedra marmorea, qua Reges & nomen & Regtttn insignia accipere solebant." A. G. Reid. Auchterarder.