Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/193

 S.V. MARCH 10, 1900.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

185

beginning on p. 21, is addressed, as usual (except the opening petitions), to our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the " good Lord " whom we beseech. Yet the compiler has forgotten this, and in the last petition (p. 26) he makes us ask for the knowledge "of Jesus Christ Thy Son " ! W. C. B.

KRUGER'S COUNTERFEIT COIN. Coin col- lectors of the future will thank ' N. & Q.' for preserving the following in its pages :

" The Boer Treasury is commandeering gold to the value of 200,000/. every month from the mines, and 150,000/. 'Kruger' sovereigns are coined monthly. For silver coins they are making imitation English florins, dated 1895 and 1S96. The die used is im- perfect, as the tail of the 9 is thick at the end. Two hundred pounds' worth of this money was put in circulation in Delagoa Bay last month." Daily Telegraph, 16 Feb., p. 7, col. 6.

N. M. & A.

THE FATEFUL POCKETHANDKERCHIEF. The following extract comes from a work of Dr. Joseph Parker's :

" A wonderful little woman was the trim little lady, Betty by name a most curious little person indeed. She would unfold a cambric handkerchief, and, like a prophet, read off the meaning of all the crumpled lines."' A Preacher's Life,' p. 21.

This kind of divination is new to me, but that may be because I have had the dis- advantage of not dwelling among the prophets. ST. SWITHIN.

" BLIZZARD." Every snowstorm is now for the newspapers a "blizzard." This Americanism is an excellent new word, but should be kept strictly to its correct meaning, that is, a storm of minute snow-dust with a gale of wind and a temperature much below freezing-point. It is common, I believe, in America ; very rare in England, where high wind at so low a temperature is almost un- known. Every one should welcome a really useful addition to the language, and set his face against its misuse. KAPPA.

LYDDITE. The telegrams from South Africa frequently mention this explosive, but owing, I suppose, to its recent introduction, the ordinary dictionaries do not give the ety- mology of the name. But Mr. Winston Churchill, in his history of 'The River War,' says that it was so called from having been manufactured at Lydd in Kent. It is there- fore a name of the same class as pistol, from Pistoja in Tuscany; bayonet, from Bayonne in France; carronade, from Carron in Stir- lingshire ; Enfield rifles, from Enfield in Middlesex ; and Dumdurn bullets, from Dum Dum in India. Perhaps some of your naval or military readers can inform us in what

year it was invented, and who was the inventor. ISAAC TAYLOR.

BOZIER'S COURT, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD. There is very little information in the topo- graphical works I have been able to consult with regard to Bozier's Court, Tottenham Court Road, the houses on the east side of which are now in course of demolition by the London County Council, and the follow- ing note, which I take from the Daily Chro- nicle of 17 January, may perhaps be worthy of preservation in ' N. & Q.' :

" The demolition of the block of houses at the junction of the Tottenham Court Road with Oxford Street reminds us that the little passage on the west side of the block, called Bozier's Court, is not without its associations. Here, fifty years ago, Mr. Westell, who, we believe, is now the oldest book- seller in London, had a shop which is mentioned in Lord Lytton's ' My Novel. In book vii. chap. iv. of that work we read : ' One day three persons were standing before an old bookstall in a passage lead- ing from Oxford Street into Tottenham Court

Road "Look," said one of the gentlemen to the

other, " I have discovered here what I have searched for in vain the last ten years the Horace of 1580,

the Horace of the Forty Commentators!" The

shopman, lurking within his hole like a spider for flies, was now called out.' The shopman who lurked was the esteemed Mr. Westell, who per- fectly remembers seeing the Lyttons, father and son, walk into his shop one day, not to buy a 1580 Horace, but to inquire the price of some three- volume novels."

JOHN HEBB. Canonbury Mansions, N.

DICKENS AND STERNE. That Sam Weller was not unacquainted with the writings of the Rev. Laurence Sterne we infer from the fifty -first chapter of ' Pickwick ' :

" No man never see a dead donkey, 'cept the gen'l'rn'n in the black silk smalls as know'd the young 'ooman as kep a goat ; and that wos a French donkey, so wery likely he warn't wun o' the reg'lar breed/'

I do not know whether attention has been drawn to the fact that, in an earlier chapter of the same book, Sam uses a phrase which recalls a passage in ' Tristram Shandy.' Mr. Pickwick has just hurled the inkstand at Jingle and followed it up himself, when Sam interposes. " Hallo ! " said that eccentric functionary,

"furniter's cheap where you come from, sir. Self- acting ink, that 'ere; it's wrote your mark upon the wall, old genTm'n." ' Pickwick,' chap. x. (ad

Compare with this 'Tristram Shandy,' chap, xxxvii. :

" And this moment that I last dipp'd my pen into my ink, I could not help taking notice what a cautious air of sad composure and solemnity there appear' d in my manner of doing it. Lord ! how