Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/291

 s. viii. OCT. 5, looi.i NOTES AND QUERIES.

283

130 years ago, is an instance of those inaccu- racies which presumably caused its rejection in favour of Theodotion's version.

W. T. LYNN. Blackheath.

LAST OF AN OLD CITY CUSTOM. One of the most ancient of City customs was partici- pated in, probably for the last time, on St. Matthew's Day, when the Lord Mayor, accompanied by the Lady Mayoress, the Sheriffs, and a number of aldermen, with the Town Clerk, attended Christ's Hospital, after service at the church in Newgate Street, where he was presented with the list of governors of the royal hospitals, together with sundry dockets. These his lordship inspected, and then formally handed them over to the Town Clerk, to be placed amongst the records of the Corporation. A. N. Q.

THE SKIPPLE-MEASURE OR SHORT BUSHEL OF NEW ENGLAND. A note under the head- ing of 'American Words' (ante, p. 183) is an example of communications to 'N. & Q.' being useful far beyond their apparent scope. The use of the term skipple as a three-peck measure in the farming districts of New England is of interest, and will doubtless be so to others as well as to me, from the example it offers of the tenacity of life which old measures possess, even far from the land of their origin and amid the competition of the legal measures of the country to which they have migrated. F. M. is right in connecting the word with Scheffel, but this is the German form, while the immediate derivation is from the Dutch schepel (pronounced skaple, with a guttural k), which is the modern representative of the Anglo-Saxon sceppe^ whence a skip, a large basket.

The schepel is the old bushel measure of Amsterdam, carried to New Amsterdam, afterwards New York, by the Dutch emi- grants of the seventeenth century. It may be short measure as compared to the U.S. corn bushel or to the imperial bushel, but it is an honest Amsterdam measure, which arose in exactly the same way as our old corn bushel, still the lawful U.S. standard of capacity, and as many similar measures, ancient and modern. Our bushel was originally the measure containing a quantity of wheat equal to the weight of a cubic foot of water at ordinary temperature, 62*3 lb., and therefore, on the pound-pint system, contain- ing the same number of pints of wheat. Similarly the schepel was the measure con- taining a quantity of wheat equal to the weight of an Amsterdam cubic foot of water,

that is, 49*4 English lb. and therefore 49 '4 pints. For the Amsterdam foot being equal to 11 '146 English inches, its cube was 1,375 cubic inches, against the 1,728 cubic inches of the English cubic foot, or nearly four-fifths ; and each of these cubic foot measures being increased for corn on the pound-pint system, the schepel was 49| pints, or a little over six gallons, against the old English corn bushel, equal to 62^ imperial pints, still used in the United States, or against the imperial bushel of 64 pints.

This New England skipple is the survivor of a widespread family of measures. It is approximately the same as one of the Nor- mandy bushels, not the old French boisseau, but the boisseau de VAbbaye de Jumieges, the standard of which, preserved at Rouen, I found, by such measurement as was permis- sible, to be approximately of the capacity of six English corn gallons.

I have reason to believe that not only the schepel, but also the above-mentioned Amster- dam foot, is still used in the Dutch parts of New England, and I shall be glad if F. M. or any other correspondents in that part of the United States will make inquiry on this point, and on the survival of other Dutch weights or measures. I would specially ask for inquiry as to the possible survival of the velt, a measure common to France and the Netherlands, equal to two U.S. or old English wine gallons, and apparently still extant at Mauritius, the Cape, and Ceylon. EDWARD NICHOLSON.

1, Huskisson Street, Liverpool.

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest bo affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

SIR NICHOLAS SMITH. This worthy was born in Exeter towards the end of the six- teenth century. Any particulars of this doughty Devonian will be valuable.

A READER.

SHROPSHIRE FAMILIES. Can any one tell me what ground there is, if any, for saying that some old Shropshire families drop their A's, and rather pride themselves on doing so 1 B. W. RANDOLPH, D.D.

Theological College, Ely.

WONHAM. I have a letter from a Louise de Eluvignes dated "Wonham, 13th December, L790," addressed to her uncle Col. F. G. de Ruvigny, R.E. (afterwards fifth Marquis de