Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/461

 9 th S. V. JUNE 0, 1900.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

453

washing clothes was called by her "Prooshun blue." It was then sold in shops in lumps known as "thumb- blue," "Prussian blue," and "Prewsher blue." For use it was tied in a bit of flannel, and this was known as the "blue -rag." The "blue -rag" had duties besides that of bluing the water. It was used to cure (or hide) marks of falling down on children ; to cure bee and wasp stings, and also ringworms. In fact, the " blue-rag " was an important thing in many households.

THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.

" ICCLE "=IciCLE. This dialect form is still in common use in Lancashire. It is at first sight suggestive of other combinations. We have landscape and seascape, earthquake and icequake ; and one thereupon surmises icicle and calcicle (stalactite). But the form is true to its antecedent, and shows that the dialect " iccle " is only the A.-S. gicel in a later form, both words meaning icicle.

AETHUR MAYALL.

QUINCENTENARY OF THE SHRIEVALTY OF NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. This event, which was celebrated at Newcastle on 23 May, should not pass unnoticed by * N. & Q.' By the charter of Henry IV., dated 23 May, 1400, Newcastle-upon-Tyne became a county of itself, separate from Northumberland, with the power of appointing its own recorder and its own sheriff, besides other privileges. At the celebration dinner the Bishop of New- castle mentioned as a singular circumstance that that was the third 500th anniversary at which he had been present, the others being those of New College, Oxford, and his own school at Winchester. He stated that New- castle was the fourth town to receive a sepa- rate shrievalty : the first was London, which received the honour in Anglo-Saxon times ; the second Bristol, in 1373 ; and the third York, in 1396. The Newcastle Chronicle has the following interesting note in connexion with this celebration :

" An important change took place in the local administration of Newcastle 500 years ago last Wednesday. By charter granted by Henry IV., and bearing date 23 May, 1400, the town, with the suburbs and precincts thereof, was then separated from the county of Northumberland, and became a county of itself, with power to elect a sheriff an- nually. Newcastle is by no means the only town or city which enjoys a similar distinction. There are in England and Wales no fewer than twenty cities or boroughs which occupy the peculiar position oi being at the same time counties in themselves. They are : Berwick-upon-Tweed, Bristol, Canter- bury, Carmarthen, Cheshire, Exeter, Gloucester, Haverfordwest, Kingston-upon-Hull, Lincoln, Lon- don, Lichfield, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Norwich,

Nottingham, Oxford, Poole, Southampton, Wor- cester, and York. The present municipal title of Newcastle, as sanctioned by the Victorian charter, dated 30 June, 1882, on the creation of the bishopric, is ' the City and County of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.'"

W. D. PINK.

ALTERATION OF PRONUNCIATIONS. (See ante, p. 395.) With regard to the change in the pronunciation of certain words, I wonder DR. MURRAY did not mention the word interesting, which is now constantly pronounced inter- esting ; and the further mistake of interested for interested is just beginning to take root. At one time (some twenty years ago) the pro- nunciation of interesting was a fair criterion of social position, but, owing to the spread of education, education and culture are no longer synonymous, and teaching is now principally in the hands of those who may be said to be highly educated, without having been surrounded by persons of culture in their youth. Hence .all sorts of strange departures in the way of pronunciations. As an example of my meaning, I would suggest that any one interested should listen to a lesson in a Board school, as, if a person of culture, he will probably hear mis- pronunciations from the teacher that will set his teeth on edge. Such words as tassel, violet, laundress, and others are pro- nounced in a way that it is impossible to reproduce on paper ; but the effect is un- pleasing and vulgar in the highest degree. Probably in another twenty years these also will have become stereotyped, as the cleverest Board-school students will begin to teach in their turn in schools of a higher grade.

F. W. H.

AN OLD WINDMILL. The following is clipped from a recent issue of the Western Times:

"The oldest windmill in Belgium, and probably the oldest in Europe, the historic ' Grand Moulin de Silly,' was totally destroyed by the great storm at the end of January. This venerable relic of the feudal ages stood on the road leading from Soignies to Ghislenghien, and is said to have been constructed by Otto von Trazegnies, the crusading lord of Silly, in 1011, on his return from the East, upon the model of the mills which he had seen in the Holy Land. It is mentioned in several mediaeval documents."

I know some very old windmills in Holland, but none that suggests a continuous existence ever since the eleventh century.

HARRY HEMS.

Fair Park, Exeter.

MIDWIVES' EPITAPHS IN NORWICH. There are two curious tombstone inscriptions to in- dustrious midwives in Norwich. The first, in the churchyard of St. Helen, sets forth how Phoebe Crew, midwife, died 28 May, 1827,