Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/93

 9<s.v.FEB.3,i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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ordered to Bengal in 1857. This book, the full title of which is ' The History of the Madras European Regiment by a Staff Officer,' may doubtless be consulted at the British Museum. The original Madras European Regiment consisted of three battalions, which were entirely in the service and pay of the Honourable East India Company. The 1st Battalion were the Fusiliers ; the 2nd Bat- talion was the European Light Infantry, and was generally known as the 2nd E.L.I. ; the 3rd Battalion was known as the 3rd Euro- peans. In 1859 these three battalions were transferred from the service of the Honour- able E.I. Company to the service of H M. the Queen. The 1st Fusiliers became the 102nd ; the 2nd E.L.I, became the 105th ; and the 3rd Europeans became the 108th. The old Madras European Regiment was not an Irish regiment, though it had a good proportion of Irishmen in it. It was principally recruited in London ; men from all parts of Great Britain and Ireland knew where to go if they wanted to enlist for Indian service. Nearly thirty years later the 102nd and the 103rd, i.e., the old Madras Fusiliers and the old Bombay Fusiliers, were linked together and called the Royal Dubliris.

FRANK PENNY, LL.M. Fort St. George.

" MANATEE." It is curious to find in so exact a work as the 'Encyclopaedia Bri- tannica' the statement, sub voce 'Manatee,' that the name of this animal is derived from the Latin manus, " in allusion to the hand- like use which it makes of its fore-limbs." This vulgar error was exposed last century by Father Gili, whose judgment upon it has been confirmed by such philologists as Humboldt (in his 'Travels') and Von Martius (' Beitrage zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde America's,' Leipzig, 1867). The ' Encyclopaedic Dictionary ' was misled by the 'Britannica,'but the 'Century' adopts the more scientific theory of the word, viz., that it is Haytian, and adds, I do not know on what authority, that it means " big beaver." Von Martius makes it signify Weiberbrust, "woman's breast," which one would prefer to believe, because it fits in with the mermaid fable.

JAMES PLATT, Jun.

ROBERT BRUCE. This, from a letter dated Cape Town, 6 December, 1899, and published in the Daily Telegraph on 26 December, seems worth preservation :

" An interesting Scottish relic was produced at the Cape Town banquet. Capt. Bruce, of Her Majesty's ship Monarch, now at Simon's Bay, sent

a locket containing a piece of the cloth of gold and a fragment of the coffin in which King Robert the Bruce was enshrouded in 1327. Three only of these lockets are extant to-day. Her Majesty the Queen possesses one, Lord Elgin, also a Bruce, another, and Capt. Bruce, a lineal descendant of King Robert, the third."

It is almost needless to say there are no legitimate male descendants of King Robert Bruce, nor, indeed, of his grandfather the "Competitor." JAMES DALLAS.

THE WORDS "GAVEL" AND "SHIELING." I beg leave to enter a protest against at least two of the assumptions made in MR. ADDY'S remarks on ' The Origin of the English Coin- age ' (see ante, p. 29). It is much to be wished that he would let philology alone, and allow his arguments to rest upon historical facts only.

There is no connexion at all between A.-S. gafol, tribute, a derivative of the verb to give, and A.-S. geafel, gafel, a fork, which is allied to our modern E. gaff. The former is neuter, and the latter is feminine. All the argu- ments based upon this supposed identity of two wholly unrelated words are not only worthless, but make the reader suspect that there is too much special pleading.

So, again, we are told that a shieling is " usually of one bay," which has nothing to do with the matter. Shieling is obviously related to Icel. skjol, Dan. skjul, and means precisely " shelter," from the Idg. root skeu, to cover, the -I being a suffix. But our shilling is from a root skil, where the I is radical. They are totally different words, involving different gradations, and that is why the vowel-sounds are different. Bad philology ought to be a thing of the past. WALTER W. SKEAT.

EPITAPH : " THIS MAID NO ELEGANCE."- The late Bishop Fraser seldom visited Warrington without asking to see the epitaph of Margaret Robinson, who died Decem- ber, 1816 :

This maid no elegance of form possess'd ; No earthly love defil'd her sacred breast ; Hence free she liv'd from the deceiver man ; Heaven meant it as a blessing ; she was plain.

See the ' Reminiscences of the Rev. William Quekett, M.A.' RICHARD H. THORNTON. Portland, Oregon.

SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF BYGONE BLACK- BURN. In the Blackburn Times for 2 Decem- ber, 1899, there was published an account of a long interview which a representative had with an old Blackburnian, and two or three of the latter's recollections seem to me worthy of being repeated in * N. & Q.'