Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/429

 9-s. vm. NOV. 23, loci.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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In such a case it would be much better to say that the criminal was executed by means of electricity ; but if we must have a single verb to express that idea and single verbs are useful things then for goodness' sake let that verb be constructed on sound etymo- logical lines. " Electrify " for obvious reasons would not do, since that word strictly means not to kill by electricity, but merely to affect by that agency, and, secondarily, to excite violently by any vivid emotion. How, then, would it do to coin and employ for this purpose such a word as "electrate," thus: his death being almost instantaneous " ? But if we must have a single verb of Greek deri- vation and accurate construction in order to denote killing by electricity, how would it do to adopt some such form as " electrothanate," or " electrophone," or ** electrokteine"? Com- petent scholars, please help.
 * The criminal was this morning electrated,

PATRICK MAXWELL.

Bath.

[See 8 th S. iv. 463; viii. 425, 518 ; ix. 55.]

WISHAW, co. WARWICK. The index at the end of the ' Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward I.,' published by H.M. Stationery Office, 1900, has the following : " Wishaw, Wyshawe [co. Leicester]." This is incorrect. Wishaw is in Warwickshire, about four miles to the east of Sutton Cpldfield. BENJ. WALKER.

Gravelly Hill, Erdington.

A QUAKER CENTENARIAN. The Manchester Guardian of 1 November had the following among its memorial notices, which I think deserves to be placed upon permanent record in ' N. & Q.' :

" The death is reported yesterday of Mrs. Eliza- beth Han bury, at the remarkable age of 108 years and 144 days. She was the widow of Mr. Cornelius Hanbury, tormerly of the firm of Allen & Hanbury, London, who died in 1869, aged 73. Mrs. Hanbury was the daughter of John Sanderson, of Armthorp, Yorkshire, and came of the same stock as the Bishop Sanderson who flourished under Charles I. and Charles II. Her father removed to London, and she was born in the parish of All Hallows, London Wall, on June 9, 1793, her birth being duly recorded in the admirable register kept by the Society of Friends at the time. Early in life Mrs. Elizabeth Hanbury became associated with Mrs. Fry in her Newgate Prison work, and for maoy years habitually visited the convict ships for women before their departure from the Thames. Mrs. Hanbury also threw herself energetically into the an ti - slavery movement. She was deeply attached to the Society of Friends, and was one of its recognized ministers. Throughout life she had a great love of poetry, and frequently expressed her thoughts in verse. She was remarkably free from illness, and could see to read and write until she was a hundred years of age. She was a total abstainer by preference from early womanhood, before pledges on the subject

were thought of. Until about the middle of her 106th year she rose and dressed and spent the latter part of each day in her sitting-room. After this time she found that dressing was too great an effort, and remained for the most part in bed. Mrs. Hanbury leaves a son and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Among her surviving relatives are Sir Thomas Hanbury, of La Mortala, Yentimiglia, Italy, and Mr. Sylvanus Fox, of Wel- lington, Somerset, and her cousins Sir Thomas Sanderson, Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and Sir Percy Sanderson, Consul-General at New York. "

W. D. PINK.

MODEST EPITAPHS. On the north wall of the church at Buckden, near Huntingdon, I found last week, to my great surprise, an epitaph without a name. It runs :

" Sacred to the memory of AN OFFICER, who sin- cerely regarded this his native village, and caused an asylum to be erected, to protect Age and to reward Industry. Reader, ask not his name. If thou approve a deed which succours the helpless, go and emulate it. Obiit 1834, set. 65." The nearest approach that I know to this entirely anonymous epitaph is one at Ambros- den Church, in Oxfordshire (3 rd S. x. 315), which runs :

"Reader, you would behold inscribed on. this stone the character of a learned, skilful, and tender- hearted Physician, a warm friend, a devout Chris- tian, had not the person here deposited, by his last testament, forbidden anything more to be said of him, than Here lieth Theophilus Metcalf, who died on the 10th of Feb. in the year of our Lord God, 1757, of his age sixty-seven."

CYRIL.

'NAMES OF STREETS AND PLACES IN THE COUNTY OF LONDON.' One expected better things of Mr. Gomme than the antiquated preface to this useful new volume. It might have been written fifty or a hundred years ago. One hoped that one had ere now seen the last of the exploded ideas as to the Celtic origin of Billingsgate and Ludgate, as to toothills and "Saxon civil administration," and as to the "specifically Danish termina- tion -wich" HY. HARRISON.

" GONE TO WELLINGBOROUGH FAIR TO BLOW THEIR BELLOWS." This, in addition to several other curious old sayings, I have often during recent years heard from a lady born and bred in Northamptonshire (1830-51), but long resident in London, and have understood that it was to her knowledge formerly in common use in her native county with re- ference to the annual death or disappearance of house-flies at or about the date when the Pleasure Fair is held at Wellingborough, viz., 29 October. The saying is, I think, worthy of enshrinement in ' N. & Q.' Whether still in use I am unable to state, although