Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/498

 486

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. v. JUNE ie, 1900.

would eat two hundred pounds of soap? a bishop drink a butt of tar- water? or that in a course of chemical neutralization, Meyer should swallow twelve hundred pounds weight of crabs'-eyes? "

(The first refers to David Hartley, the second to Bishop Berkeley.) The price in 1702 was sixpence per ounce. GEORGE C. PEACHEY. Brightwalton, Wantage.

I had an old book given to me lately called

" The Compleat Housewife, or Accomplish'd Gentlewoman's Companion. Being a Collection of upwards of Five Hundred of the most approved Receipts in Cookery. To which is added a Col- lection of above Two Hundred Family Receipts of Medicines fit either for private families or such publick-spirited Gentlewomen as would be bene- ficent to their poor Neighbours. By E. Smith. Printed for J. Pemberton at the Golden Buck over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street. 1732."

Crabs' eyes are mentioned in the following recipe, which is apparently for an internal cold :

"To make Gascoigne's Powder. Take of Powder of Pearl, red Coral, Crabs' Eyes, white Amber, and Hartshorn, of each one ounce, beat them to a fine powder and scarce them. Then take a dram of oriental Bezoar and a dram of Ambergrease, and mix with the powders; then take off the black Toes of Crab's-Claws, beaten to a fine Powder, as much as of all the rest of the Powders, for this is the chief; then mix all well together, and make them up in Balls in Jelly of Hartshorn, and in your Jelly infuse a small quantity of Saffron to give them a Colour. When you have rolled them in Balls as big as a Walnut, lay them on a China or Silver Plate to dry; when they are fully dry and

hard paper them up, and keep them for use The

Crabs used in this Powder must be caught in May or September, and they must not be boiled."

MATILDA POLLARD.

Belle Vue, Bengeo.

The so-called crabs' eyes of our old dis- pensatories were really small stones, composed chiefly of lime, found in the ventricles of the brain (or, as some say, in the stomach) oi the crayfish (Astacus fluviatilis}. Along with crabs' claws (the powdered black tips of the claws of the sea crab) they entered into the composition of the once famous nostrum known as "Gascoigne's Powder" (pulvis ex chelis cancrorum compositus). The com pound powder of arum root of the London and Edinburgh dispensatories of last century also contained powdered crabs' eyes. Th< name is still in use in druggists' shops, bu I understand that prepared chalk is now generally substituted for the original crab eyes. Its properties are much the same crabs' eyes having been used chiefly as ai antacid. C. C. B.

MIQUELON (9 th S. v. 375, 421). St. Piern and Miquelon are two islands belonging t<

on the coast of Newfoundland. They ,re very near each other, and when meri- ipned the names are often joined, " St. D ierre-Miquelon." So "Pierre" may have )een omitted by careless typesetting. There s, of course, no " St. Miquelon."

M. N. G.

" SERIFF " (9 th S. v. 246, 345). One, if not more, of the five British letter - founders pells this word " surryph." Those characters which lack these finishing strokes (vulgarly sailed " block-type ") are " sans-serif," in- iicating that the name reached England rom France. The names of much of the urniture used in printing-offices are un- nistakably of French origin, e.g., "quoin," 'chase,"" peel," &c. T. B. WILMSHURST.

Tunbridge Wells.

ERLIK KHAN (9 th S. v. 395). There is an

account of the " Hindu Yama " in Mr. Moncure

D. Conway's * Demonology and Devil-Lore,'

. 283-5, and several other references to the

same deity are scattered up and down the


 * wo volumes comprising the work. He is

Iso apparently alluded to as the " Calrauck

Erlik" (see vol'. i. p. 195). C. C. B.

TOBACCO (9 th S. v. 268). On making the same inquiry a few years ago, I was informed bhat the collection was sold at Bragg's death, the purchaser being the head of the firm of ~ope, the tobacco merchants of Liverpool.

AYEAHR.

THE EARL'S PALACE, KIRKWALL, ORKNEY ISLANDS (9 th S. v. 337, 426). FRANCESCA will find a full account of this building, with plans and elevations, in Macgibbon and Ross's ' Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland,' vol. ii. p. 387. J. B. P.

FOOTBALL ON SHROVE TUESDAY (9 th S. v. 283, 402). I agree with MR. ROBBINS when he says that "it would be interesting to collect the local references throughout the country to this custom." It is considered by many folk-lorists that Shrovetide football like the Haxey hood-game, East Anglian camping, and West -Country hurling is a survival of a rite intended to propitiate the powers of evil which injure children, live stock, and crops, or to influence the weather. Allied practices, both English and Indian, are mentioned in Mr. Crooke's article on the legends of Krishna, published in the current number of Folk-Lore. The Rev. T. Mozley says in his ' Reminiscences,' published in 1885 (vol. i. p. 392), that in the early part of the nineteenth century a savage Good Friday game was played by the Charterhouse boys.