Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/499

 s. vm. DEC. 14, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

491

of the Cycle ' appeared in the L.A. W. Bulletin and Good Roads, published in this city. They began in the issue of 24 December, 1897, with escription of a hobby-horse shown in a

would appear to be correct to add ten days to the numerical designations of those feasts as given in the present calendar.

On the assumptions aforesaid, and by the

stained-glass window in St. Giles's Church at addition accordingly of the ten days, the true

1 anniversary (in the solar year) of St. Barna- bas's Day, 11 June, 1550 (O.S.), is 11+10= 21 June, which day is given in the almanacs of 1901 as the longest day and therefore the shortest night.

(This agreement supports the belief that the familiar distich, if it was written when it was true, must have been composed in or about the sixteenth century.)

Similarly, to find the true anniversaries of saints' days connected with folk - lore which originated earlier than the sixteenth

Stoke Poges, near Windsor, said to date from 1643. They appeared every week until the Issue of 8 April, 1898, each being illustrated with many types of wheels, up to the " High Diamond" of 1896, and though short, and necessarily technical, were of considerable interest and value throughout.

N. W. J. HAYDON. 34, Union Park, Boston, Mass.

POLITICAL PAMPHLETS AND BIG SALES (9 th S. viii. 383). 'Five Years of Tory Kule,

a A,P es ?^ T> ar ?l. \ W S?i?% 1 - by ^ Ne t! U 5 8is I century, the number of days to be added is (Alfred F. Bobbins), published in 1879, had a less than ten ^ and the remo ter the time of

circulation of between 1-05,000 and 110,000.

POLITICIAN.

ST. BARNABAS'S DAY, 11 JUNE (9 th S. vn. 445 ; viii. Ill, 214). The meteorological folk- lore associated with certain saints' days may have originated (a) either in the idea of the

the origin of the folk-lore, the fewer the number of days to be added.

THOS. C. MYDDELTON.

St. Albans.

DUELS (9 th S. viii. Hamilton and Lord

364). The Duke of Mohun fought with

-*? l ft; SifiTKSSfi* 3 =3KM HTde Parkon 1.1KUK

n the case of St. Swithun or

the so-called translation of Swithin (15 July), or (b)

1712. Both died of their wounds. Capt.

St. bwitn n or i uo juiy;, o W p d and Mr> H ayes fought in 1728 ; the

simply from the observation of the meteoro- fJJ,. n, ir QOJT , Q & u a ii ' i

logical conditions^ a given day or during a | Mo^fougK

period immediately following it.

Messrs. Hamilton and 1748, the former being

killed. A proclamation was issued in 1679

In the case of 15 July it may perhaps i fch t * hould be pardoned who killed

be supposed that St. Swithun continues to h V d j Th p ^ oclamation implie8

exert liis influence, m this twentieth century, '. A t ^^ be enforced. F As on the very day on which the festival is kept, rjuels ^ ftt firgt a form of j } procedure and on its proverbial forty days after. ( f < Bellum antea Duellum Vocatum') it is

To ascertain the day m our present calendar ^ surprisin g that the law did not intervene which is the true anniversary m the solar K t f eir suppression. Nevertheless, yearof anyone of the saints days included L h eatest legal authorities in different in my second classification (6), it should be times _ such as Co ke, Bacon, and Hale-have stated that such anniversary will be a certain ^ distinctly affirme d that a duel in the eye number of days subsequent to the nominal Q the lftw d j ffers in noth i n g from an ordinary day, and that the number of days after the murder> The seconds o f % o th parties were nominal day will vary with the century algo at In the Indian Code duelling is during which the meteorological observation pun ished as homicide. See the ' Encyclopsedi was first made and recorded, the more remote B ritannica > sv < Duel,' with the bibliography the period of observation, the ^smaller being | ftt the end of the arfc i c le ; also Bentham's

the number of days to be added. Thus in our present calendar 5 January

Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.' The * Dictionary of Dates '

(N. S) is the true anniversary of 25 pecembe^ iv ft es interesting particulars, and Steele, in 1750 (O.S.) ; but 4 January (N.S.) is the true fr^ Nog 25 26> 28, 29, 31, 38, and 39, deals anniversary of 25 December, 1550 (U.B.). It ith th quest i on o f duelling from the stand-

., A|A,A M 4- V ^*i/-w4-x^M^v 4-l-r4- 1 4- ici Kirfcrfcoooo VTT in inrli I il f* j. L }

point of a contemporary in the nrst halt or the eighteenth century. ARTHUR MAYALL.

Mr. H. S. Cuming knew a Dr. Smith, the

i/iuiv i>"M -n ^n i.v^- iV L C U i* s iu W U .^i 6 - surgeon, who resided in what was then called one centur}', and assuming further that that Upper Marl borough Place, Wai worth, and a century was the sixteenth, then, in order to Mr. Livermore, one of the seconds in what he find the true anniversaries of the feasts, it believes to have been the last of the duels,

is clear, therefore, that it is necessary in each case to know the century of the origin of each bit of folk-lore.

Assuming (merely for the sake of illustra- tion) that all this folk-lore originated during