Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/186

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

s. v. MARCH 3, 1000.

It was a shop for the sale of cheap publica- tions, and I have frequently spent small suras there. In those days there were issued several sheets supplying the place now occupied by penny newspapers, as Clark's Weekly Dispatch, White's Penny Weekly Broadsheet, The Penny Satirist; but no news was allowed to be inserted, as that would have been a violation of the Stamp Act.

Cleave's Penny Gazette endeavoured to supply the place of news by political cari- catures, rather coarsely executed, of the pro- minent events, and actors in them, of the day, in which Sir Eobert Peel, the Duke of Wel- lington, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Goulburn figured conspicuously, and honest John Bull was depicted as put to the torture in various forms, in order to extract money from his pocket. Be it remembered that those were the days when the Repeal of the Corn Laws was anxiousl} T looked for, and there was the cry for cheap bread. After a career of some years Cleave* & Penny Gazette changed both in manner and matter, being issued in form like Chambers's Journal, and containing miscel- laneous articles usually taken from other periodicals. This ran a career of about two years, and became extinct about 1845.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

" DOZZIL " OR " DOSSIL " (9 th S. iv. 479 ; v. 17). It is not quite clear from Miss PEACOCK'S inquiry whether " dozzil " stands for any kind of scarecrow or only cut figures.

Not long since I saw a figure of a gunner with his mimic gun at present arms on a tall stack, the centre one of three, near Bunri's Hank, an ancient entrenchment between Attleborough and Old Buckenham in this county of Norfolk.

Scarecrows of all kinds, I believe, are called " shays," " malkins," or " mawkins." Thus, in Mr. Rider Haggard's * Farmer's Year ' (p. 105) :

"The mawkin nowadays is a poor creature com- pared with what he used to be, and it is a wonder that any experienced rook consents to be scared by him. Thirty years or so ago he was really a work of art, with a hat, a coat, a stick, and sometimes a painted face, ferocious enough to frighten a little boy in the twilight, let alone a bird. Now a rag or two and a jumble-sale cloth cap are considered sufficient, backed up generally by the argument, which may prove more effective, of a dead rook tied up by the leg to a stick."

And, again, of pigeons (at p. 264) : "It is said that ' mawkins,' or scarecrows, have no terrors for these bold bad birds."

A history of scarecrows has yet to be written ; they are referred to in Fletcher's ' Bonduca ' (Act II. so. iii.) : "Men of clouts set to keep crows from orchards," and these,

[ believe, are called " corn-boggarts " in Scot-
 * and. JAMES HOOPER.

Norwich.

As to the meaning of this word a sugges- tion is given in a note quoted in Baring- Gould's 'A Book of the West,' vol. i. p. 55, where reference is made to white rods, "on the top of which was a tossil made of white and blue ribband." Hence "dossil" or

dossel "=tossil tassel. Is the word " dossil " applied to stack finials in other than bird or animal shapes 1 H. SNOWDEN WARD.

Hawthornden, Woodside Park, N.

CHURCH IN CANTERBURY OLDER THAN ST. MARTIN'S (9 th S. v. 26, 94). An interesting correspondence concerning St. Pancras took place in the columns of the Church Times in March and April, 1897. In a letter signed " Gertrude M. Reynolds " (C. T., 2 April, 1897) occurs the following sentence respecting the church at Canterbury :

"St. Augustine dedicated his first church in England in the name of that saint [St. Pancras]. The church of St. Pancras was of enormous extent, and stood in a field adjoining the St. Augustine's Missionary College. Part of the chancel arch, with Roman tiles, still stands ; a pigstye is close by. It is surmised that St. Augustine chose this dedica- tion in memory of the little ' Angli' through whom he came to Britain, St. Pancras being a child-martyr and a member of a noble Roman family."

Other correspondents drew attention to various churches in England dedicated to St. Pancras, whose commemoration day is 12 May, as MR. ANDERSON supposes.

JOHN T. PAGE. West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &o. St. Peter in Rome and his Tomb on the Vatican

Hill. By A. S. Barnes, M.A. (Sonrienschein

&Co.)

FROM a careful study of ancient plans of St. Peter's at Rome and the lie of the ground, Mr. Barnes convinced himself that the tomb of St. Peter is actually lying beneath the floor of the apse of that august cathedral. In order to put this conviction of nis to the test, he was permitted to make investi- gations on the spot in February, 1S98, and he began operations in the little chapel of S. Salvatorino, which lies to the left of a visitor to the crypt as ho looks eastward. It is supposed that it was through this means of approach that Charlemagne visited the body of the saint in 774. At the close of the sixth century St. Gregory of Tours certainly mentions that an entrance to it was practicable at that time, though it may be doubted whether his words, " hoc sepulchrurn sub altari collocatum valde rarum habctur," exactly bear the meaning which Mr. Barnes attributes to them, "his sepulchre, which is placed under the altar, is exceedingly rarely entered " (p. 189). From a