Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/113

 v. FEB. 10, i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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eastern end of such buildings, and in 1584 Sir Walter Mildraay, the founder of Em- manuel College, Cambridge, caused the college chapel to be purposely built north and south, by way of protest against the supposed superstitious traditions of pre- Reformation church builders. Such Puritan ideas seem to have been carried out at that time in a few instances, and occasionally continued during the Georgian period, as is to be seen in St. George's Church, Blooms- bury (built about north and south), and some others, and in later times, as instanced at Ealing and neighbourhood.

In a few instances this arrangement may have been necessitated by difficulties and peculiarities of the site; but in others the altar has actually been purposely placed at the ivest end of the church instead of the east, with no other apparent motive than that which influenced Sir Walter Mild may in 1584 (as in Emmanuel Church, Streatham Common).

I am referring now to the Church of England fabrics only. Those of the Roman communion and of the Protestant sects seem to be influenced by no guiding rule in this matter. Further information is solicited from the readers of ' N. & Q.' J. B. H.

[There is much on the subject in the Second and Third Series.]

EIGHTEENTH - CENTURY ADVERTISEMENT COMPETITION. -- The following quaintly worded offer is, I think, worthy of preserva- tion in ' N. & Q.' :

"By Authority. | State Lottery, 1777. I Shoe- Cleaning. | Persons having Shoes cleaned by | John Eauey, \ Opposite Red Lion Street, Holborn, | on paying the usual Price for the same, with | each Pair will receive a Number and Note | of Hand, entitling the Bearer to Half A | Crown, if such Number proves the same | as either of the Two 20,000 Prizes in | the present State Lottery.

" %* The Money is lodged in the Hands | of an eminent Banker.

"N.B. To prevent the Public being imposed on by Piratical Intruders | on this Plan, be careful to observe that the Office-Keeper and Inventor has | a Wooden Leg which is at once a Criterion of his Identity, and the Pur- | chaser's Security for his not Running away ; as too many Intruders in the I Lottery Business, Men of No Property, have been known to do.

" t-l-t For the Purchaser's further Safety, he is cautioned to see the | Office-Keeper's Wooden Leg a Security which no Plan possesses but his | original and authentic one ! "

The " Note of Hand " runs thus : " I promise to pay the Bearer hereof Half A Crown, if | f+f No. [17 M 222] t+f | should prove the same as either of the 20,000 Prizes in the | present Lottery, 1777. | John Easey."

W, G. BOSWELL-STONE.

WORD CORRUPTION. It was once the pre- vailing notion that dialectic forms of speech were corruptions of the language as it is used in Parliament, the law courts, and the newspapers, which was, as a consequence, regarded as " elegant " English. Though this superstition is by no means extinct, it is confined now to a small obscurantist body chat is yearly becoming less. Word corrup- tion does exist, however, arid is itself a subject worthy of attention, as it is, like all things else, regulated by laws. It may there- fore not be out of place to record a curious example of a perversion of this kind which was brought under iny notice upwards of twenty years ago. In the township of Burringham, on the east bank of the Trent, not far from the point where that river empties its waters into the Humber, a farm was bought by three partners, who borrowed from the Law Life Assurance Company much of the capital to pay for it. One of these partners had been a labouring man, and had risen to be a farm bailiff. With him I often came in contact in my official capacity as a Commissioner of Sewers. I noticed that when alluding to the mortgagees, as he often had occasion to do, he always spoke of them as the " Low Life Company." As I knew him to be on by no means cordial terms with the agent of that body, I at first thought that this was but a feeble attempt at sarcasm, but I soon discovered I was wrong, and that this was the name the com- pany went by throughout the neighbour- hood. Not only the labourers on the farm, but every one else around used the same form of speech. Witnesses of various classes employed it over and over again when giving evidence before the Court of Sewers. The three partners are dead, but the mis- pronunciation still flourishes. A Burring- ham man used it in conversation with me not more than two years ago.

EDWARD PEACOCK. Dunstan House, Kirton-in-Lindsey.

SPECIAL LITERATURE WRITTEN FOR SOLDIERS. (See ante, p. 2.) In addition to the curious literature noted in ' N. & Q.,' the following, of rather later date, may be worthy of notice. 'Abridgement of the English Military Dis- cipline,' 1686 :

" I. All officers and soldiers shall diligently fre- quent divine service and sermon.

"XX. Whoever shall run from his colours, or doth not defend them to the utmost of his power, shall suffer death."

And 'The 'Rules and Articles for H.M. Land Forces in the Low Countries,' 1704, prescribe not less draconic laws :