Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/45

. 9"~s.v1.Jm.v14.1900.1 NOTES AND QUERIES. 35 or dome of the hill," and 38, “still the two highest blocks of buildings seen from Nor- wood on the crest of the ridge,” never can have been true. The house really on the top is called Hill Crest, about midway between Ruskin’s two dwellings. His account might still lead one to Tay Lodge, as likely to be named by his father But he was really brought up at No. 28, many houses lower down. E. L. G. MR. H1-:BB has set down No. 13, Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, as Ruskin’s birth- place instead of No. 54. That this is a slip of the pen is evident, because MR. HERB describes the ouse correctly as on the west side of the street and three doors from Great Coram Street. No. 13 is on the east side of the street. The house in which Ruskin was born was No. 54 when his father lived there, and it is No. 54 still, butit only just escaped becoming No. 5, Judd Street. In January, 1887, the Metropolitan Board of Works ordered that the name Hunter Street be abolished, and that the line of thoroughfare known by the names of Hunter Street and Judd Street be renamed Judd Street, the houses to be renumbered, with the odd numbers on the west side and the even numbers on the east side. Considerable op(position to this action was evoked by this or er, and in July, 1887, the Board resolved that the portion of Hunter Street situated in the paris xof St. George’s, Bloomsbury, should be exempt from the Board’s original order. By the amended order the houses Nos. 18 to 26, Hunter Street on the east side and Nos. 27 to 36 on the west side became art of Judd Street, and were renumbered. The remaining houses were left as still in Hunter Street, and with their old numbers. The Council of the Society of Arts have arranged to place a memorial tablet on the house No. 54, to commemorate the interesting fact that John Ruskin was born there. HENRY B. WHRATLEY. BOROUGH-ENGLISH (9°*‘ S. v. 376, 501).-MR. JAMES PRAcocK’s reply to MR. EDWARD PEACOCK’8 question is crowded with blunders. He confounds Richmond in Surrey with Rich- mond in Yorkshire. He confounds Skidb, nearHull, with Skeeby,near Richmond, York- shire: and he confounds Borough-English with gavelkind. He states that “by the custom of the honour of Richmond, of which Skidby is blunder. for. Skeeby] was parcel, males in erit in common,” which is not true, and never was true. In the manor of Rich- mond in Surrey, however, the custom of Borough-English obtains, and lands descend to the oungest son (Manning and Bray, i. 411). He states that “in the Swailedale manor courts the same custom prevails,” which also is not true, and never was true. Speaking of Skidby, he says “ it is probable that the tenants are copyho ders,” in apparent oblivion of the fact that, in any manor, tenants affected by manorial custom of any kind must necessarily be copyholders. Finally, he is “not aware that the custom still exists outside of manor courts.” The italics are mine. It is in a manor, not in a manor court, that a custom exists. Borough- English is the custom by which the youngest son succeeds to an estate, and not merely the ceremon by which he is admitted a tenant; and has his.. PEACOCK any evidence that this, or any other manorial custom, ever did exist “ outside of manor courts,” or manors? In the manor of Skidby the youngest sons of intestate cop holders are still admitted tenants, in accordance with Borough-English. In default of sons the youn est brother suc- ceeds : 15 September, 1890, Charles Anthony Skeet, then a minor, was admitted tenant of the lands previously held by his father, Robert Skeet ; 24 May,l899, Wi liam Stephen- son, son of the youngest brother of the last tenant, Richard Stephenson, was admitted. I have long had the intention of examining the Skidby manor court rolls. How long but for MR. E. PEACOCK'S in uiry, this would still have been an unfulfilled intention I cannot say. The necessary permission has been most courteously granted by the present steward of the manor, and in a few weeks I hope, by the kindness of the Editor, to com- municate a brief summary of the results of mi; sgarch to ‘N. & Q.’ J. R. BOYLE. ll. MEN WRARING EARRINGS (9"‘ S. v. 88, 191, 321, 386).-The li ht thrown upon the origin of this widely diéused custom is, it must be admitted, only dimly illuminative. In Mr. Oswald Cockay ne’s ‘ Leechdoms, Wortcun ning, and Star Craft of Early England] a ring, pre- sumably either a finger or an ear r1ng-im- material so long as it represented the solar circle-is prescribed, wit the following in- structions, as a remedy for sore eyes:- “For sore eyes, before sunrise, or shortly after it begin fully to set, go t.o the same wort ‘pro- serpinaca, and scratch it round about with a go den ring, and say that thou wilt take it for leech om of eyes; and after three dayszgo again thereto before rising of sun, and take lt, a ham/ at about (he 7?ldJl’8 swere (necky it will profit well. -‘Herbar1um,’ vol. i. p. ll . ’ But that the wearing of earrings is neither peculiarly a sailors custom nor one ex-