Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/113

 vii. FEB. 9, loci.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

105

a man eating a piece every day) for th disease "El Gallico" (the "French disease").

Snakes steeped in spirits of wine are gooc for rheumatism.

Beans, a particular hard, large, and shinj sort, carried in the pocket keep off hsemor rhoids. So does a sloth -skin placed on th< saddle.

Puerperal fever has a chance if a charcoa

fire be made in the patient's room, thf

windows being closed, and incense anc

lavender burnt thereon. IBAGUE.

[For the pigeon cure see 9 th S. v. 226, 343 ; vi. 12.]

"J'Ai VBCTJ." This is the well-known mot of the Abbe Sieyes when asked what he had done during the Terror. I believe it is generally understood to mean that he thought it an achievement to have saved his life. But is it not possible that another and perhaps a higher sense may attach to the words, or at least have been in the mind of the author of them when he gave the witty reply ? In Montaigne's * Essays,' III. xiii. 326, ed. Hachette, 1892, we find the following brief dialogue :

" ' le n'ay rien faict auiourd'huy.' ' Quoy ! avez vous pas vescu? c'est non seuleraent la fonda- nientale, mais la plus illustre de vos occupations.' "

The Abbe would probably be familiar with this, as well as with Horace's lines, Od. iii. 29 :

Ille pptens sui

Lsetusque deget, cui licet in diem Dixisse ' Vixl'

C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A. Bath.

POISON IN BEER. This new evil recalls attention to the obsolete " beer- taster." John Shakspere, father of our great dramatist, was appointed " ale Conner " at Stratford on 10 April, 1557, and it is characteristic of him that he was fined for non-attendance. The office is Latinized as gustator cerevisice, so not specifically a " barley-brew." In the present century we learn that the Mayor of Dun- stable is officially "beer-taster" for that noted place, but his worship declined to operate, so an inspector was instructed to take samples, and to effect the tasting after due analysis ! In London (City) the office is limited to an inspection of the measures.

A. HALL.

A REMARKABLE "CENTURY" INCIDENT. The following from the Manchester Guardian seems worth noting :

" Somewhere in the Highlands twins were born at the meeting of the centuries, with the odd result (says the St. James's Gazette) that one opened its eyes in the nineteenth and the other in the twentieth century. It is surely the most remarkable of all ' century '

incidents. There are two men in England who will read of the birth of these century twins with special interest one a peer of the realm and the other a member of the House of Commons. The peer owes his peerage to the fact that he was born fifteen minutes before his brother; the M.P. missed an earldom by being born fifteen minutes late. The peer is Lord Durham ; the M.P. is the Hon. F. W. Lambton, member for South-East Durham. Both were born on June 19, 1855, the earl coming into the world fifteen minutes before his brother. Those fifteen minutes were worth an earldom and 30,000 acres to the lucky baby."

W. D. PINK.

PALESTINIAN SYRIAC INTERROGATIVE. The pronoun or adjective p*n = " which...? " or "what...?" with its feminine KTH is re- gistered in the ' Thesaurus Syriacus,' s.v., and also in Sch wally's 'Idioticon,'p. 117, but neither authority cites any plural form of this word.

Examples of its plural P?*fl may now be Found in 'Palestinian Syriac Texts,' ed. Lewis and Gibson (1900), at p. 56 (1 Thess. iii.

9) and p. 58 (1 Thess. iv. 2). The f^n which appears in the Gospel Lectionary at Matt. xix. 18 is almost certainly not the demonstrative "these"), but another way of writing the above plural, for the sense of the passage demands an interrogative there. E. B.

TAPPING " AND " TIPPING." The historian vails will need to note a portion of the pro- ceedings at the meeting of the London ounty Council on 23 Nov., 1900, to deal with icences. A restaurant licence was opposed >n the ground that the waiters were not paid a living wage, and this is a report of what ollowed :
 * he annual applications for music and dancing

" Three waiters testified that emergency waiters

were paid only 2s. 6d., that no food was given them,

nd that they were not allowed to ask for tips.

lr. Gill, Q.C., asked one of these witnesses

whether the management objected to them asking

customer, after dinner, whether everything had een as he desired, or whether he wished for a oothpick. (Laughter.) The witness was under- bqod to intimate that such a course would not be bjected to. Mr. Gill : That practice is, I under- tand, what Mr. Vogel calls ' tapping.' A Council- or : No, tipping. Mr. Gill : Oh, ' tapping' is quite istinct from tipping. (Laughter.) "

t is a distinction which in practice is ithout a difference, but it is well to have it fficially explained. ALFRED F. BOBBINS.

FORMATION OF A PLACE-NAME. For the ast three or four years, in crossing the South

astern Railway station enclosure at Charing Dross, I have heard the waterman or a cab- man call put " Klondyke." I thought it must >e the nickname of some adventurous cab- man who had been there and had returned.