Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/336

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NOTES- AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vm. OCT. 19, 1901.

fontein, Luipaard Vlei, Wolvehoek, and Hondeklip. Hoek means a corner or cape, and klip, another frequent element in Dutch names, means rock or cliff, as in Klipfontein and Cape Hangklip, where the first syllable shows that the rock or cliff overhangs. The word modder, mud, explains the Modder River, as well as Modderfontein and Zwart Modder, the latter meaning black mud, while Zwart Kop is black knoll. Vryheid, a place which has been conspicuous of late, is the same as the German Freiheit, freedom, a name paralleled by the West African Liberia, the American Liberty, and to some extent by the European Villafranca and Fribourg. We find riet, reed, in many names, such as Riet- fontein and Great Riet. Vlak means flat, as in Vlakfontein, while Rondeval is the round valley, and Vredefort contradicts itself as the peaceful fortress. Magersfontein is the poor spring, Roodevaal the red valley, while Graspan explains itself as the grassy cup. Other words, such as dorp, stadt, burg, berg, rand, veldt, rimer, and vlei, resemble English or German words, and require no explanation. ISAAC TAYLOR

ST. MARCELLA (9 th S. viii. 264). There is more than one corrigendum at this reference. The saint was not a "young martyr," not a martyr in the common acceptance of the word at all, and certainly over seventy years of age at her death in 410. Moreover, the note is on the wrong track. Under 31 January Baring-Gould has a jejune sketch of Marcella, whose story has nothing of legend about it.

She sprang from the great house of the Marcelli, very wealthy, and had a palace on the Aventirie. She was early inclined to asceticism, and, after a married life of a few months, devoted her wealth largely to charity. From 382 to 385 she attached herself to St. Jerome, besetting him with Biblical questionings, and "he wrote for her some fifteen different treatises on difficult passages of Scripture and Church history." In 387 she retired, with Principia, her adopted daughter, to a small house outside the walls ; but when Alaric attacked Rome (410) she was back in her Aventine mansion, which, however, had long before had its treasures dispersed among relations and the poor. She had been the first Roman of noble family to become a nun, and when the Goths burst into the house believing that her humble dress was but a mask to conceal wealth, they severely scourged her. She clung to the knees of her assailants, begging only that they would spare the virtue of Principia. They were softened, and led the two women to St. Paul's

Church. She died a few days afterwards. St. Jerome is the principal authority for her life. See Smith and Wace, ' Diet. Christian Biog.' C. S. WARD.

Dr. Owen in his ' Sanctorale Catholicum,' under date of 5 September, says : " In North Wales, the feast of St. Marcella, Virgin, Patroness of the Abbey of Strata Marcella by Welshpool." HARRY HEMS.

Fair Park, Exeter.

CHILDREN HANGED (9 th S. viii. 243). The story of the boy hanged at Chelmsford bears a suspicious resemblance to another story, according to which, in or before 1630, a boy of nine was executed at the Berkshire assizes for burning a house or two. This statement is quoted from a letter of 27 March, 1630, by Masson, ' Life of Milton,' vol. i., edition of 1881, p. 232. It is permissible to hope that the story of 1630, which Masson calls " horrible," is the true and only foundation for the state- ment made by your correspondent in 3 rd S. i. 39. I.

Mr. Henry C. Lea, in his * History of the Inquisition,' vol. i. p. 236, says that in this country "as recently as 1833 a child of nine was sentenced to be hanged for breaking a patched pane of glass and stealing twopence worth of paint."

I have a note that Mr. Cooper King, in his ' History of Berkshire,' p. 119, tells of a child being hanged, but as I have not access to the volume I cannot give the particulars.

ASTARTE.

From ' Haydn's Dictionary of Dates ' I gather that John Any Bird Bell, a boy of fourteen years of age, was hanged at Maid- stone on 1 August, 1831, for the murder of Richard Taylor, a boy one year his junior. It is strange that this should have occurred in the same year as the arson case mentioned by POLITICIAN, to which I see no reference in Haydn. JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

ARTISTS' MISTAKES (9 th S. iv. 107, 164, 237, 293; v. 32, 317, 400; vi. 44; viii. 171). The blunders committed by painters in repre- senting details of uniform are worth record- ing, if only to cause more care to be taken in these details in future. Here are a few instances which occur to me. In the Illus- trated London News the men of the Foot Guards lining the streets in London during the funeral procession of the first Duke of Wellington are shown as shouldering their muskets on the wrong shoulder. In a modern painting representing the loss of the Birken-