Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/469

 9* s. V.JUNE 9, im] NOTES AND QUERIES.

461

nor is its resemblance to the passage in Madame de StaeTs * Corinne ' more than verbal. C. C. B.

" CROWDY - MUTTON " (9 th S. v. 375). See 'E.D.D.' (s.v. 'Crowdy,' sb. 2). In Devon the term *' crowdy " is used for " a pie made of a mixed medley of materials from mutton-chops to onions and apples." A. L. MAYHEW.

Oxford.

OLD AND NEW STYLE OF CHEONOLOGY (9 th S. v. 268, 344, 401). Of course, W. E. B. is right, arid I inadvertently wrote 29 September instead of 29 October (the morrow of the feast of St. Simon and St. Jude) for old Lord Mayor's Day. My principal object is to dis- own all credit forgiving the true explanation of the change of day to 9 November, which is entirely due to NEMO in the place to which I before referred, where he gives the reasons for the adoption of the latter date. As will be seen by my letter at the same time, I was then under the impression that it changed automatically in consequence of the change of style, like the date of the king's birthday. By a coincidence the change in the latter case was made in the same year in which George III. became, by the death of his father, Prince of Wales. But it seems to me that W. E. B. is not quite right in his concluding remark, that " if he [the king] wished to keep the real anniversary, he should have kept it on 5 June N.S. from 1800, and Eton should now observe 6 June as the commemoration." Surely not so ; by the change of style the date of the year was made to correspond in future with the exact state of the season. George III. was born on a day then called 24 May in England, but 4 June on the Continent. It was decided in 1752 to make our dates correspond with the continental usage, restoring the seasons to their dates at the epoch of the Council of Nicsea, and afterwards keeping the same by adopting the Gregorian (which is very nearly the true) length of the tropical year. To have called the king's birthday

5 June from 1800 would have been to make it a day later in the season. But, as I pointed out before, saints' days and other holy days were treated in a different fashion and observed on the same nominal days as before. Christmas Day, for instance, was always 25 December ; but our 25 December was from 1582 to 1700 ten days, and from 1700 to 1752 eleven days, later than on the greater part of the Con- tinent. In 1752 we made what would have been 25 December, 5 January, 1753, which was therefore old Christmas Day (the new one being eleven days earlier) until 1801, when

6 January became old Christmas Day till

1901. The change, it will be noticed, took place at the end of February this year ; but as Christmas is at the end of the year, it is not till January, 1901, that the date of old Christmas Day changes. W. T. LYNN.

Black heath.

SIR NATHANIEL RICH (9 th S. v. 249). The REV. E. H. L. REEVE might consult the index and extracts from the Eltham parish registers given in Drake's ' History of the Hundred of Blackheath,' wherein two Nathaniels appear and a short pedigree of the Rich family.

FAMILIAR FRENCH QUOTATIONS (9 th S. v. 336, 398). There ought to be added to my list 'Classical and Foreign Quotations,' by W. F. H. King (Whitaker & Sons), as that book gives references. H. B. P.

Inner Temple.

MYALL- WOOD (9 th S. v. 396).' Austral Eng- lish,' by E. E. Morris, has a long article on myall, the main facts of which are : It is an aboriginal word with two different meanings : (1) An Australian acacia-tree, which forms whole scrubs and thickets, arid has drooping branches like the weeping-willow. The tree is scented, smelling, according to native writers, like raspberry jam or violets, and is made into weapons, stock-whip handles, or pipes. (2) Wild natives, especially in Queens- land. The term mail or myall is the ab- original word for " men " extensively used in New South Wales. The explanation of Lum- holtz, 'Among Cannibals,' 1890, that blacks were called myalls by the whites because they lived in myall woods, is not generally accepted.

HIPPOCLIDES.

VICE-ADMIRAL (9 th S. v. 149, 252, 325, 384). The Vice- Admiral of the Coast has no uni- form. Those curious on the subject will find a few surplus copies of my work on 'Vice- Admirals' at Reeves & Turner's, Chancery Lane ; also a list, corrected by me, is pub- lished yearly in Debrett's ' House of Commons and Judicial Bench.' SHERSTON BAKER.

The Cloisters, Middle Temple.

" BED- WAGGONS " (9 th S. v. 356). The bed- waggon was the predecessor of the long- handled brass or copper warming-pan, the latter having been in its turn superseded by the hot- water bottle. Although it varied in the manner of the construction of its frame- work, the principle, of the brazier secured in a tripod, was the same. One from an old farmhouse near Bramley, in Surrey, was typical in its construction, formed as it was by a framework of wood slightly curved to faci- litate its movement under the bedclothes.