Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/431

 9 th S. V. MAY 26, 1900.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

423

Hence it has apparently acquired the mean ing, not only of endurance or resistance o tumultuous noises, as confused talk, super abundant street noises, &c., but also that o bearing any specific burden, such as financia responsibility. It would perhaps be futile t seek its exact origin, further than assumin, it to be contemporaneous with the adoptioi of the racket in the national pastime o tennis. In former times the French, wh seem to have been the first to use the racket played with the naked hand, then with ; glove, which in some instances was lined afterwards they bound cords and tendon round their hands to make the ball reboum more forcibly, and hence the racket derivec its origin. (See 'EssaisHistoriques sur Paris vol. i. p. 160, quoted in Strutt's ' Sports anc Pastimes,' &c.) J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

How HISTORY is MADE (8 th S. i. 44). No to multiply uselessly headings, I insert the following under an old one of my own. A 9 th S. iv. 529 occurs a brief review of Mr. E Callow's book 'From King Orry to Queen Victoria,' in which it is remarked, inter alia that it is "a book which, though flippan in some of its judgments, and not always scrupulously accurate, may be read witl advantage."

The reviewer of 'N. & O.' has, in addition to this verdict, but touched upon one or two of the inaccuracies of this book. Here are a few more pointed out by a local journal, which deserve to be pilloried in ' N. & Q.' in per- petuam memoriam :

" A short popular history of the Isle of Man is a real desideratum. But Mr. E. Callow's well-meant attempt to supply it, in a book entitled ' From King Orry to Queen Victoria,' cannot be regarded as suc- cessful. The earlier history of the island is more than usually beset with pitfalls for the unwary local antiquary, and into most of them our author has fallen. He is quite uncritical : he believes the Manx Celts to be aborigines, confuses the two Monas, and triumphantly asserts that the island must be considered the birthplace of constitutional and re- presentative government, ' the cradle of England's Parliament and those of her colonies.' Castle Rushen is, we are told, 'one of the finest and most perfect specimens of old Saxon castles in the world.' His mistakes, if not, to borrow the remarkable words in which he alludes to the number of guide- books to his native island, ' as plentiful as ambrosial leaves,' are sufficiently numerous to shake the judicious reader's confidence in his accuracy. To the best of our knowledge, for instance, King John was not reigning over England in 1237 and in 1250, but Mr. Callow seems to be under the impression that he was (pp. 29, 31). He improves as the story reaches modern times, but, taken as a whole, the book is a good example of the way in which local history should not be written."

How long will this wretched plague of

writing bad history afflict honest seekers after truth? Only, perhaps, will it cease when the last chapter of all history shall have been penned. J. B. McGovEKN.

St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

" MORAL POCKETHANDKERCHIEFS " (9 th S. v. 147). The idea of the "moral pocket- handkerchief " of Dickens, as well as of the objet moralisateur of the Baron E. de Mandat- Grancey, is to be found early in our dramatic literature. Take, for instance, these lines from Mayne's ' City Match ' (given in Dods- ley's * Old Plays,' vol. ix. p. 251) : She works religious petticoats ; for flowers She '11 make church histories ; her needle doth So sanctify my cushionets ! besides, My smock-sleeves have such holy embroideries, And are so learned, that I fear, m time All my apparel will be quoted by Some pure instructor.

And Beaumont and Fletcher, in 'The Custom of the Country' (Act II. sc. iii.), make Rutilio tell Arnoldo,

Having a mistress, sure you should not be

Without a neat historical shirt. But a very few years before Dickens wrote 'Pickwick' there were political as well as moral pockethand kerchiefs. An account is given in 'N. & Q.,' 7* h S. v. 387 (see also 2 nd S. ix. 281), of Berthold's ' Political Handkerchief,' the first copy of which was dated Monday, 5 Sept., 1831, at the price of fourpence. That it was issued in this form to avoid the news- paper duty is shown from its address :

"To the Boys of Lancashire We have no

patent for this new pocket handkerchief, because we ntend to advocate the interest of the working people, and consequently do not intend to pay any
 * ax for our knowledge to the tyranny that oppresses

You shall be all as busy as bees if our Whig Taxers do not, by the omnipotence of an Act of Parliament, declare cotton to be a paper, and a landkerchief to be a pamphlet or a newspaper."

M. P. asks whether "objets moralisateurs are really made and sold at the present day 7 pr the purpose of converting the unbe- ieving "; and an answer is afforded by the 'olio wing announcement which appeared in Central Africa, the monthly record of the work of the Universities' Mission, for October, 899 (p. 192) : "Any one wanting handkerchiefs for African

hildren is requested to apply to Messrs., Man-

hester, for some of those specially printed for J.M.C.A. The price is 2s. a dozen (postage extra, d. for one dozen, 5d. for two)/'

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

Pockethandkerchiefs conveying the moral


 * aught bv the present South African war, by

means of representations in coloured print

f incidents in the struggle, and of the various