Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/371

 .v»` /- 9"'S- VI-001'-20. 1900-1 NOTES AND QUERIES. 305 English land measurement can be shown wit great probability, if not with certainty, from a lonlg list of measured cotagia in the ‘ Hundred olls.’* It appears that at Magna Saltreya Monachorum, in Huntin donshire, there was a quarter or district cahed Vicus Canomcorum, which belonged to the priory of Huntingdpn. This quarter was inhabited by seventy-eight persons, who held cotagia, or small pieces of land on which cottages or huts were, or could be, built. These were not messuages, though two of them are accidentally described as such. The length and breadt of each of these cotagia. is given In feet, so that we know the area of the plot In each case. Eighteen of the plots, or about 23 per cent., are multiples of a block of 240 square feet. Forty-one of them, or nearly 53 ger cent., are multiples of 80, i.e., a third of t is block. To give a single instance, one of the plots is 100 ft. long by 60 ft. broad. It therefore contains 6,000 square feet or twenty- five complete blocks, each of which measures 12ft. by 2Oft. and contains 240 square feet. And if we take 4,800 square yards, or 43,200 square feet to the acre fifty-two out of the seventy-eight plots will o into that acre without leaving a remaincier. These cottage plots are consistent with an acre of 4,800 square yards; they cannot be made to fit into an acre of 4,840 square yards. And, with four exceptions, they cannot be reduced to square yards, so as to form messuages, or a icxuot parts of messuages, in accordance wit the table. The actus quadratus is a square whose sides are 120 ft. in length. If we put three of these squares together, so as to form an oblong rectangle 120 ft. in breadth and 360 ft. in length, we shall get an acre of 4,800 square yards. We can divide this rectangle into our roods of 30 ft. in breadth and 360 ft. in length, or we can make an acre of 4,800 square yards out of four long roods laid side by side, the breadth of each rood being 15 ft. and the length 720 ft. We can also divide this rect- ang e into four half-roods of 30 ft. in breadth an 180 ft. in length. Now the Roman settlers in Further Spain gave the name gorca. to a strip of land of this ver same readth and length. “They had eviclvently,” says Prof._ Ridgeway, “brought this cus- tomary unit from Ita.ly.”+ The Roman settler who brought the porca into Further Spain may also have brought it into Britain. S. O. ADDY. (To be continued.) ii.‘l'l6%rr;ith’s ‘ Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiq.,’ i EARLY POLITICAL CLUB.-In a letter dated 8 J anuaxg, 1697/8, from E. Harlety to Sir Edward arley (‘Du1§e of Portlan ’s MSS.,’ vol. iii. p. 595), it is said :- “ Last night a Rore club was summoned, where it was resolved to brin the question for the disband- ing of the army into Eebate againe, which was done this day contrary to all the rules of the House.” Should not this be “ Rose club "2 Macaulay mentions (‘ History of England/ chap. xxu.) that “ one of the methods employed by the Whig junto, for the ur ose of instituting and maintaining through alll the ranks of the VVhg party a discipline never before known, was the frequent holding of meetings of members of the House of Commons. Some of these meetings were numerous: others were select. The larger were_ held at the Rose, a tavern frequently mentioned in the political pas- quinades o the t1me.” ALFRED F. Rossnrs. THE DATE or THE CEUcIFIx1oN.-Dr. Edersheim in his work on the Temple states that the seed for the corn of the wave-bread was sown seventy days before the Pasch. From this we may conclude that it is a mistake to suppose that the first day of each month was determined by the appearance of the moon ; it was only the first day of the first month, Tisri. In fact, such a practice would have caused endless confusion throughout the Jewish year. Now on 26 Sept., A.D. 29, the moon was in conjunction with the sun at eight minutes past 5 P.M. It was, of course, not visible on that evening, nor was it for some reason visible on the 27th. Perhaps the weather was too much for those that were on the look-out. Hence the lst of Tisri was reckoned to commence on 28 Sept. at sundown, that is, 1 Tisri was kept on 29 Sept., beginnin overnight. The following six months consisted of 3 times 29 and 3 times 30 days, amounting to 177 days. The 177th da a ter 29 Sept. was 25 March, A.D. 30, which' was therefore the lst of Nisan. The 14th of Nisan was con- sequentl 7 April, A.D. 30 commencing over- night. This day was a lfriday. It was on that day, then, that Christ was crucified. This theory seems to remove a difficulty that has tormented chronologists for a very long time. W. A. BULBECE. Downside Abbey. “LIKE oNE 0’CLOCK.” (See ante,  l98.)- This is a common expression in Lon on. The books of reference searched by MR. THOMAS evidently did not include Halliwell’s ‘Dic- tionary, where he would have found this item: “ One-o’clock. Like one-o’clock, ie., very rapidly, said of a horse’s movement, &c."
 * ‘ Rot. Hundr.,’ ii. 664 b.