Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/364

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. vn. MAY 4, MOI.

boy say to another that my wife and I were two "goddams." The boy did not mean 1 to be overheard, and used the phrase as we do " John Bull " and " Paddy." M. N. G.

[We fail to trace this.]

The desired reference is to be found in Lord Mahon's 'Historical Essays,' the one entitled * Joan of Arc.'

RICHARD LAWSON.

Urmston.

The question of Joan of Arc and " goddams" has already been discussed in * N. & Q.' (see 4 th S. iv. 173 ; 7 th S. viii. 288, 415).

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

" GILL'S LAP " (9 th S. vii. 228). Mr. Boys Firmin, the author of an illustrated guide to Crowborough, where I believe he lives, states in his book that different explana- tions have been given of the term "Gill's Lap." "A very old man of Crowborough," he continues,

" who is now dead, told me about seven years ago that he remembered the trees being planted there when he was quite a boy, and the name was given to the place in consequence of a carter of the name of Gill having there overturned a waggon laden with litter, and that the Earl of Dorset saw from a distance the accident, and said to some persons who were with him, 'Gill's cart has lapped over.'" Firmin's ' Crowborough,' p. 76. The Earls of Dorset became dukes in 1720, and the last Duke of Dorset died in 1815, when the title became extinct. If Mr. Firmin's explanation is correct (and it seems more probable than the story of Guilderus), the godfather of Gill's Lap must have been one of the last Dukes of Dorset.

J. A. J. HOUSDEN.

"SUB": SUBSIST MONEY (9 th S. vi. 246 354, 435). This is an expression used both as a noun and a verb, principally by con tractors for extensive public works and theii staff. As a noun it denotes a sum of mone advanced to the navvies, labourers, o workmen for the purpose of subsistence between the regular intervals of payment As a verb it is, of course, applied to th< act of making such advances. It probably came into general use at the same time a "navvy" (i.e., navigator = a labourer em ployed in the construction of canals), am naturally, when railway construction wa commenced in Great Britain, the term hac become common among the class of men employed upon such undertakings. Th collection of large bodies of workmen in out of -the- way and sparsely populated districts the system of fortnightly payment

dopted, made it a matter of necessity for tie employers to advance to their men etween these payments small sums of money or the purpose of subsistence, and also as n inducement for them to remain on the works ; consequently " sub " became a regular nstitution among them. The timekeeper s accompanied on his last daily round by a lerk, who carries sufficient money for " sub." t is a common thing for a new hand to start work in the morning, and on the same after- 10011 to ask for and receive about two-thirds if a day's pay as " sub"; and where men are carce, or work has to be pushed on with ixtra vigour, they are allowed to continue his process even daily, the amounts being jooked against them by the clerk and leducted on the fortnightly pay-sheets. Nearly thirty years ago, while training for ,he engineering profession, it was my daily iuty to keep time and to "sub" for some mndreds of men engaged on extensive rail- way and other public works in England, so
 * hat I can speak with confidence as to the

meaning and use of the expression.

JAMES TALBOT. 94, Royal Exchange, Adelaide, South Australia.

May not the meaning of "sub" be derived from " subordinate " 1 The term '* sub " as an bbreviation for a subaltern officer used to 36 common enough. I can remember a witty application by Dean Mansel of a quotation irom Aldrich's ' Logic ' upon this word at the Dime of the Crimean War in 1854-55 :

Quinque subalterni totidem generalibus orti, Nomen habent nullum, nee si bene colligis usum.

Several treatises on logic, though quoting the memorial lines precedent, do not give these. Aldrich's ' Artis Logicse Compendium ' was originally issued in 1692.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

ST. CHRISTOPHER AND LAUGHTER (9 th S. vii. 247). In the Middle Ages, when men took legends for history, they accepted as a truth the assertion that the saint's last prayer was that those who looked on his portrait should be free from storm, fire, earthquake, and such like evils ; and so an opinion grew up in England and many other parts of Europe that to escape from such disasters a glance at a painted or carved image of the saint was sufficient. On that account images of him were put in or near the portals of churches, and used as household and personal ornaments. The lines quoted by MR. E. S. DODGSON refer to this. In the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 5 May, 1887, p. 388, the following distich is given from King's 'Gnostics and their Remains,' p. 135 :