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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. v. JAN. 13, 1900.

Had Dodd only lived long enough he would have seen all he had propounded coming literally to pass, for even now I have before me the draft of a Bill to come shortly before Parliament, for a Purfleet and Gravesend Railway, reviving again the old idea of that tunnel.

MR. MARSHALL would scarcely dare to dub Brunei, the engineer of that once famous Thames Tunnel between Wapping and Rotherhithe, as a man of ideas only, though we all know what a failure it proved as com- pleted. Water was constantly pumped out, only to keep the tunnel open as a curiosity, or as a new wonder of the world, and the best use that could be found for it was to convert it into a bazaar for the sale of children's toys, giving it an appearance not unlike the pre- sent Burlington Arcade, except that in 1843, the anniversary of the opening, the directors varied the scene by the holding of a three days' fancy fair, the " Wizard of the North " performing, as did a troop of Ethiopian min- strels and bands of music, with "myriads of variegated lamps." It is to-day simply a part of along dark tunnel of the East London Railway Company, and people have forgotten its very existence as the old Thames Tunnel. Then, in referring to the Thames and Med- way Canal, MR. MARSHALL appears to be altogether unaware that Dodd's scheme of 1800 became an absolute fact accomplished in 1824. A part of that canal is the present tunnel, two miles long, under the chalk hills between Strood and Higham. In those days, before railways were, a tunnel of two miles long was rather a big affair.

But the tide of time brought railways to the fore, and the iron horse laid its hoof upon the route, as it did on many a canal trust. It is not generally known now that one of the earliest iron roads for locomotives ever constructed was that between Strood and Gravesend, now swallowed up, like the Thames Tunnel at Wapping, in railway mono- poly, by the present amalgamated South- Eastern and Chatham and Dover systems. Trains used to run then on a single line, laid upon the towing-path, side by side with barges in friendly commune.

Happening to have been present at Darling- ton, at the great Railway Jubilee Exhibition in 1875, 1 could not but notice then, among relics of the past, a quaint old locomotive, lent by the South-Eastern Railway Company, which had apparently in its heyday run over this very line. It was exhibited in company with George Stephensori's "Locomotion," that magnificent piece of machinery, for thi? occasion removed from its honoured pedestal

n front of Darlington Railway Station, and abelled "S. & D. R., No. 1," with the record as to how it had trailed its trains of coaches and waggons in 1825 at the unheard-of rate of twelve miles an hour.

There are, I fear, folks in Gravesend to-day who would tell you that the present South- Eastern Railway has rather gone back than mproved upon those promising times. Without daring to dispute such statement, would be more inclined to blame the people Gravesend, where the names of Dodd and such as he are ignored and forgotten. Graves- nd ought to have given him a statue. Like the great Homer, he asked for bread, and they might at least have given him a stone. This port of London has had, in its time, chances of progress almost before any other place in the world, and even still has if its people would but awaken and see. But its pioneers are laughed at, and their theories dubbed as fairy tales. It is the regressionists only now who can find a way to the fore, and Gravesend sleeps, in the very gateway of the great market .of the world, a very slightly disturbed sleep, and snores.

CHARLES COBHAM, F.S.I. The Shrubbery, Gravesend.

CHILD'S BOOK (9 th S. iv. 499). The lines " Mama, why mayn't I when I dine," will be found in Mrs. Turner's * Cautionary Stories,' to be had at any bookseller's.

GERALD PONSONBY.

"NEFS" (9 th S. iv. 457). I have not seen any of the " nefs," or silver models of ships, mentioned by A. R. P., but such things must have been fairly common in countries where the feudal system held its own. In the Middle Ages, for instance, vessels of huge dimensions and shaped like a ship were placed before the feudal lord, containing wines, spices, sauces, spoons, and such-like appurtenances of the dinner-table. Similar articles appear to have been used by the kings of France, and Francis I. is said on one occasion to have been extremely vexed with the Protestants because they were in the habit of slipping a note into the "nef " in which the kings meal was served. These luxuries were sometimes of gold as well as of silver, and were mounted on tigers, or adorned at either end with angels or pea- cocks displaying their tails. A favourite ornament would be a number of escutcheons on which were shown the arms of France. T. P. ARMSTRONG.

Timperley.

" Petite machine en forme de navire oil Ton enfermait le convert du roi, ct qui ae servajt sup un