Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/261

 9«s.vL SEPT. is, woo.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 215 line, and the saddle of the boltsprit, and the bit for the cable, and the girth to hoist the rigging, and the whip to serve for small tackle ?—There is a trick for you to find out an Abramnmn, and save sixpence when he begs of you as a disbanded seaman.—Get along with you I or the constable shall be charged with the whole pressgang to man the workhouse. — Chap, xxi., " Perplexities." JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. THE THREE KINGS OF COLCHESTER' (9th S. vi. 127).—MR. BENHAM may possibly find what he wants under the title The History of Four Kings, their Queens and Daughters, Kings of Canterbury, Colchester, Cornwall, and Cumberland. Being the Merry Tales of Totn Hodge. And his Schoolfellows. London, Printed for the Company of Trayeling Sta- tioner." There is no date to my copy of this indecent little chap-book, which was probably printed about the middle of the last century. The "Three Heads of the Well" figure in the Colchester tale, but there is no section so headed. Probably there were earlier issues of the pamphlet. I. C. GOULD. MACAUXAY PORTRAITS (9th S. vi. 128).— Does the REV. JAMES J. Q. GRAHAM by "Lord Macaulay's Lady " mean "Lord Mac- aulay's wife " ? Lord Macaulay died a bachelor. G. A. M. PICTURES COMPOSED OF HANDWRITING (9th S. v. 127, 255, 367 ; vi. 131).—At Wellington College, over the fireplace of the Master's Common-room (if I am not mistaken), there stands, or used to stand some thirty years ago, such a portrait of the " Iron Duke. H. E. M. St. Petersburg. " GUTTER-SNIPE " (9th S. vi. 127). -The word intimation or priggishness or pettiness, espe- cially impertinence, was very common in Philadelphia as far back as 1835, as I can well recall my indignation when called by it. There can be no question that it came into use from the German schnipp or ichmppisck— snappish, pert, saucy. " Gutter-snipe " began to appear in newspapers some years later. It would, however, be curious to ascertain whether the term does not exist in some form in old provincial English. " Gutter " was very naturally added from its association with mud. It was generally believed in New England, and I dare say elsewhere, that the snipe lived by sucking mud. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND. This is also a Wall Street term for a broker who does business chiefly on the sidewalk, or on the street, and who is not a member of the Stock Exchange—a "curbstone broker." Is not our "gutter-snipe" the common snipe Gcdlinago scolopacinus, which frequents marshy moorlands, and is also called the mire-snipe and heather-bleater 1 General Gordon's arab protdgds were called "gutter-kings " :— "At Gravesend [on the anniversary of General Gordon's death, 26 June, 1899], where he taught his 'gutter-kings,' the Chinese flags presented to the Ragged School were tied with pieces of crape, and were viewed by a number of visitors."—Morn- ing, 27 June, 1899. J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL. Wimbledon Park Road. LOOKING-GLASS FOLK-LORE (9th S. vi. 7,131). —A day or two ago a rather severe thunder- storm passed over this island. The daughter of the keeper of the only hotel in the place at once covered up the looking-glass. HARRY HEUS. He 1'Ouessant, Finisterre. "A HACHE AND A HORSESHOE ARE BOTH ALIKE" (9th S. vi. 127).—Jamieson, in the 'Scottish Dictionary,' i.v. " Mauch, mach, mauk, f, A maggot, S.A. Bor. mauk," gives this proverb, which he quotes from Ferguson's ' Scottish Proverbs,' p. 7. His reading, how- ever, is " A mach and a horse's hoe are baith alike." In the process of transcribing, "a horseshoe "or "a horse shoe "might readily be converted into "a horse's hoe," and vice versd, and it is doubtful whether either form of the words conveys an intelligible meaning. Jamieson, indeed, admits the difficulty, his comment being, "This seems to have as much of the enigma as of the proverb." There is, I believe, an agricultural implement known as "a horse's hoe" or "a horsehoe," but whether it is shaped like a maggot or not 1 am unable to say ; nor should I venture, even with a knowledge of its form, to attempt an elucidation of this recondite proverb. THOMAS BAYNE. "AOAM" (9th S. iii. 68, 170, 296).—This word, in the sense of a colour used for cloth, was discussed at the above references without result. 1 have just discovered what I believe to be the correct solution. In the early seventeenth-century spelling of Oriental words g is constantly used for »'. Thus in Foster's ' Letters of E.I. Co.' (vol. ii. 98) we have "Agamero" for Ajmere; and Bernier (Constable's edition, 215) uses "Agenas" for the Persian Ajnds. Agam, I believe, is the Arabic-Persian 'ajami, which means a person not an Arab, or a barbarian, or, more specially, a Persian (see Burton's 'Arabian Nights, Library Edition, i. 110; ' Pilgrimage
 * «>)«•, as expressive of contempt with an