Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/70

 NOTES* AND QUERIES. [9 th s. VIIL JULY 20, 1901.

to the sale fully determined to be purchaser, for he paid the amount of his bid in specie. Poor Disraeli was bewildered at the idea of being encumbered with such a large sum of money at an hour when all the banks were closed. His local solicitor, Mr. Joseph Lovegrove, had to convey the money to his residence. He put it under his bed, and paid it to the Gloucestershire Banking Company, Gloucester, as soon as the bank opened on the following morning, to the credit of his client, Benjamin Disraeli. There is a prejudicial story current which I wish to refute, and I should be obliged to any one who could tell me when General Sir James Viney died. H. Y. J. TAYLOR.

13, Falkner Street, Gloucester.

LAND TAX. May I be allowed to point out that the 'N.E.D.' ascribes to this word an antiquity to which it is not entitled? The context* of Mr. Bradley's first quotation shows that the distinction was between fish- ing tacks (or leases) and leases of land. In 1689 Bishop George Hooper printed a tract entitled ' The Parson's Case under the Present Land Tax,' referring to the sums collected under statute 22 and 23 Car. II., c. 3, as "the present Land Tax." In the absence of fur- ther evidence, it would therefore seem that this the immediate precursor of the still existing land tax was the first impost called by that name. Q. V.

FAMILY LIKENESS. K. J. J. has related at 9 th S. vii. 472 a very striking case of

the corporation of Aberdeen " hes concludit and ordinit that thir takis vnder writtin pay. ..the sowmes vnderwrittin, and ordinis the said sowmes to be allocat in thair nixt first grissumes. And gif thair be ony takkismen of the tovne that dissentis to the paiment of thir settis, that thai salbe dischargit of thair takkis, and neuer haue tak of this guid towne in tyme to cum. That is to say, euery half nettis tisching of the raik
 * 24 Apr., 1533. The Defence Committee of

Euery half net of the midschingfle]

Kuery half net of the pott

Euery half nett of the furdis

Euery half of Done ...

Euery eaxt part of the cruffis

Euery auchtand part of the cruifis xiij.s.

LAND TAKIS. Rubislaw ... Hessilheid

xxxs. xxs. xx s.

X9.

xxx.s. xxs.

Henry Irvein, for

the tane half of

XX.9.

xiij.s'.

x.s.

xxxiii.s. iiijrf. xxvis. viijd.

Schedeslie Gardin Bogferlay...

&c., &c. (' Extracts from Aberdeen Council Registers

Spalding Club, 1844, p. 148.) U. also the ordinance of 15 Dec., 1533, on p. 149.

" throwing back " to a remote ancestor. May I be allowed to cite another remarkable instance of this? I have an oil portrait, painted in 1780, of my paternal great-great- great-aunt, Jane Petherick (nee Mathews), of Truro, who was childless. So far as I am aware, no relative of mine bears any par- ticular resemblance to this portrait, with one exception a female second cousin on my father's side. This lady so exactly resembles the old portrait that if she were to dress in mob cap, plum-coloured bodice, and white stomacher, it would be quite as exact a like- ness of herself as any artist could paint. Yet her relationship to the original lies only in the fact that Jane Petherick's father was their common ancestor. In other words, the only cause of my second cousin's close re- semblance to the old portrait is that she descends from a brother of the original.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS. Town Hall, Cardiff.

JEROBOAM. The name of this recalcitrant king of Israel has apparently passed into that extraordinary farrago of language, Parisian argot, judging from this extract from the Figaro (1 July) :

"Voulez-vous savoir qui boit le mieux, c'est-a- dire davantage, de tous les peuples du monde qui passent chez Maxim ? Ce sont les Russes. Un jour, un Russe a bu h, lui seul un double jdroboam, c'est-a-dire urie de ces immenses bouteilles qui con- tiennent huit bouteilles ordinaires de champagne."

It is notorious that some Russians consume vodka by the pailful, a liquid far stronger than champagne. FRANCIS P. MARCHANT. Brixton Hill.

["Jeroboam " for a large bottle of wine is familiar in English. See ' H.E.D.']

PARASOLS. The account of the introduc- tion of umbrellas into Sheffield, which ap- peared in the Athenaeum of 15 June in a review of Mr. R. E. Leader's * Sheffield in the Eighteenth Century,' has brought to mind an occurrence worth recording as to the umbrella's sister, the parasol.

About fifty years ago there lived in a vil- lage in the Eastern counties a doctor who had several daughters. He and his children were refined and cultivated people. One day he had occasion to visit a large town at a con- siderable distance from his home, and there he bought for each of his girls a parasol ; with these they appeared in church on the next Sunday. The owner of a great part of the village and of much adjoining property was a baronet whose wife held very decided opinions as to the desirability of keeping in their proper position those whom she regarded