Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/19

 9* s. vii. JAN. 5, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Rabbi Moses schnoders (offers) a caser=five shillings. I have often heard dealers in Petticoat Lane say to one another, "I will give you a caser for it," i.e., a crown piece. M. L. R. BRESLAR.

I venture to submit to MR. JAMES PLATT, Jun., that it is rather to the credit of the 'H.E.D.' than otherwise that it only con- tains one word of Yiddish slang, and to sug- gest that Mr. J. S. Farmer will be delighted to have for his 'Slang and its Analogues' any number of exact quotations for such words. Q. V.

SKULLS FOUND IN VICTORIA STREET, WEST- MINSTER (9 th S. vi. 428). I think that light can be very easily thrown upon what appears to be darkness concerning the finding of these skulls. I have in my possession a map or plan, which belonged to Mr. H. R. Abra- ham, giving the immediate neighbourhood of the then projected street now known as Victoria Street. The date of the map is 1845, and the gentleman, if not the actual designer of the street, was, as I believe, the architect of some of the earliest buildings there for the Westminster Improvement Commissioners. The line of the street here given, if not quite the one eventually followed, is at least near enough for the purpose in view. If a line be drawn from the south-east angle of Christ Church railings in a straight line across Victoria Street to the private door of No. 67, and thence to the south-east corner of the Hotel -Windsor, the triangular space within these lines will give us approximately the portion of the churchyard absorbed by the new street when it was made. It therefore seems clear that the skulls and bones found in the way described must have been once laid to rest in the churchyard, either since Christ Church was built and dedicated in 1843 or in the days before, when the ground was attached to the New Chapel that used to stand here. Presumably the portion of the burying-ground required was cleared of all human remains, but of course it is possible that some escaped observation and were left under the new roadway when made. That some of the bodies here interred had come to an untimely end is probable, for the net- work of unsavoury courts and alleys about this spot in those days is well known, and was doubtless a legacy left to the city from the evil old sanctuary days. We have only to remember the Great and Little Almonry, the New Way, Old and New Pye streets, Dean Street, Orchard Street, Dacre Street, Cooper Street, Duck Lane, and some very

questionable places further along, Paradise Row and Fugeon's Row (close to Palmer's Village), where quarrels were of almost hourly occurrence, to feel that violent deaths were not likely to be few or far between. And further, when the street was first opened for traffic, and for many years afterwards, it was avoided by pedestrians on account of the bad locality through which it was pierced, robberies being then very frequent. The spot where the remains alluded to were found was beyond all doubt part of the churchyard, and this, I think, accounts for their being found. May I say I am always delighted when I see our "American cousins" taking an interest in things concerning the past of London? W. E. HARLAND-OXLEY.

14, Artillery Buildings, Victoria Street, S.W.

This is nothing new. A great deal of Victoria Street, Westminster, is built upon arches. After the absolute clearing away of a large district that was, until then, one of the plague-spots of London, the straight, wide road now existing was formed. It is raised some ten or twelve feet above the former land level. Shortly after its formation a number of "carcasses" were built. These now form the brick skeletons of many of the present houses. The speculation, however, did not prove a success from a financial point of view ; and so it came about that these "carcasses" remained unfinished buildings for many years. In between the blpcks-of half-built residences the plots were simply waste land, showing here and there evidences of the foundations of destroyed houses. In 1855 some lads dis- covered human bones upon a spot that had evidently at one time been a graveyard. It was situated about one hundred and fifty yards down the street (coming from the Abbey) and upon the left-hand side. By grubbing the soil, skulls and human bones of all descriptions were unearthed. These finds the youngsters used to break up and sell for old bones at a market price of one halfpenny a pound in certain rag - and - bone shops situated in the adjacent Great Peter Street and Strutton Ground, S.W. I lived in the immediate neighbourhood at the time, and have seen sackfuls of thesa grim relics of departed humanity dug upon that particular spot and thus disposed of. HARRY HEMS. Fair Park, Exeter.

DETACHED SHEET (3 rd S. vi. 266). Let me take pity on the twice unfortunate. The late PROF. DE MORGAN asked from what work had become detached a sheet which he described. This query was not indexed, and I cannot trace any reply, although I have searched.