Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/95

 9*8. VIII. JULY 27, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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probability I do not think it likely, even if Dr. Dalton had confused the 'Chronicle' with the 'Survey,' that J. S. Nichols would not have discovered it and noted it in the papers which he put together on the subject, and which were all given in my former com- munication. We must always bear in mind that in the seventeenth century (and doubt- less later on) publishers often resorted to the expedient, for getting rid of a stock of remainders on their shelves, of printing a title-page with a fresh and later date, so as to give the fancied appearance of a new edition to the balance of copies, sometimes small, remaining as dead weight on their profits. This would make the issue of a particular year easily unknown to biblio- graphers like Lowndes, who after all is full of omissions and mistakes. Of course many of them are such as we are all prone to, even when we describe what we see. Thus, as regards Stow's monumental effigy, I may add that before I wrote my note as to his engraved portrait I went to see his effigy in St. Andrew's Undershaft Church, which I had found Nichols, Cunningham (in his ' Handbook of London '), and Mr. Sidney Lee (in the ' D.N.B.') all describing as of " terra- cotta." But the monumental effigy really seems to be partly of marble, white and veined with red, and the bust and doublet of an alabaster-like marble.

FREDK. HENDRIKS.

SUFFOLK NAME FOR LADYBIRD (9 th S. v. 48, 154, 274 ; vi. 255, 417 ; vii. 95, 396). The local childish name for the ladybird given on the authority of John Clare by Miss Baker is " clock-a-clay," not " clock-a-day." I do not think this designation is very common now.

JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

In Norfolk the May-bird is called burnie- bee, by contraction from burnie-beetle or fiery-beetle. The following address to that insect is in the mouths of children there :

Bless you, bless you, burnie-bee, Tell me where my true-love be ; Be she east, or be she west, Seek the path she loveth best ; Go and whisper in her ear That I ever think of her ; Tell her all I have to say Is about our wedding-day. Burnie-bee, no longer stay ; Take your wings and fly away. The Monthly Magazine or British Register, Part II. for 1814, p. 148.

K.

ANGLO-HEBREW SLANG : " KYBOSH " (9 th S. vii. 188, 276, 416). I am almost certain I

remember seeing this word kybosh, as it occurred in a case reported from the police courts some few years ago, in which the kybosh was understood to have been a sort of knuckle-duster used by footpads to impart a knock-down blow from behind, and I think the word is widely known among the Hooligan criminal class to mean silencing a person by this means. As to its origin, the following, from the Jewish World of 10 May, ap- pears to have escaped the notice of corre- spondents :

" What is kybpsh ? At a glance the word seems to suggest an Irish or Celtic origin. But no son of Erin, we make bold to say, would recognize it. That it is slang is indisputable. Surprising though it seem, the word is a compound, and is of pure Hebrew origin. Ky stands for chai, which means ' the life of.' The second component is a corruption of has, which means ' a daughter.' The complete expression is used to denote the sum of eighteen- pence, the life of a girl in her father's house being supposed to terminate at eighteen. Kybosh is evi- dently a cockney corruption, and preserves the original meaning. The Hebrew term is used in announcing offerings when one is called to the Law."

From silencing a person by wheedling talk or "blarney," it is easy to understand its application to the quieting properties of a weapon like a knuckle-duster but the transi- tion from the meaning imputed to it by the above Hebrew etymology to the "blarney" sense is not so apparent. Then there is another unexplained form, as " The correct kibosh," meaning the proper form, manner, style, or fashion of something ; " the thing," e.g., " Full dress is the correct kibosh."

J. H. MACMlCHAEL.

The " ticket-of -leave man" is singing of his gaol comforts, and explains : Oh, dear, I can't help a-thinking They '11 knock our profession all to smash If they bring in the kybosh like winking That is, would introduce the lash.

HAROLD MALET, Col.

DEFENDER OF THE FAITH (1 st S. ii. 442, 481 ; iii. 9, 28, 94, 157 ; 9 th S. vii. 416). See also for this subject 5 th S. ii. 206, 254, 318, 435.

POLITICIAN.

WEST-COUNTRYMEN'S TAILS (9 th S. vii. 286, 410). In Once a Week, 2 January, 1869, Third Series, No. 53, vol. ii. p. 553, ' Notes on Tails' is an article inspired by the then recent course of lectures of M. de Quatre- fages, delivered at the Museum of Natural History at Paris, on 'The Tail in Man and Animals.' I do not know if it would be this same savant who some time in the forties convulsed my mother by absent-mindedly handling the tail of his