THE WEDNESDAY CLUB. (See 11 S. vii. 391.) -MR. HUMPHREYS mentions that the Grillion Club was for a brief period called "The Wednesday Club." Was it at all common to name a club after the day of meeting? There was a Wednesday Club in existence in the early years of the eighteenth century, the members of which thought their deliberations of sufficient importance to place before the public in print. A small volume entitled: "An Enquiry into the State of the Union of Great Britain and the past and present state of the Trade and Publick Revenues thereof. By the Wednesday Club in Friday Street, London, 1717," is sometimes met with in booksellers' catalogues. This purports to give a detailed account of the Proceedings of the Club during the latter half of 1716. The public finance of the time is dealt with unsparingly, and suggestions made and schemes brought forward for the improvement of matters. The Puritan element was not absent; several members quoted (apparently with approval) Old Testament maxims to give point to their argument. Is anything now known as to the constitution and membership of this earlier Wednesday Club? D. A. BURL. PROVERB ?-Mr. P. G. Hamerton in his Intellectual Life quotes a saying about "the foolish camel that lost its ears as the result of seeking for a set of horns" which is quite unknown to me. It has a Semitic ring. I believe it is Arabian. Can any reader give us the original and its source?

HEBREW OR ARABIC

- In a

THE MILLER OF HUNTINGDON. letter which he wrote to his friend Toby Matthew, on 10 Oct., 1609, accompanying his Refutation of the Philosophies' (Redargutio Philosophiarum '), Bacon says:— "Myself am like the miller of Huntingdon, that was wont to pray for peace amongst the willows; for while the winds blew, the windmills wrought, and the water-mill was less customed."-E. A. Abbott, Francis Bacon,' 1885, p. 160.

Can any one tell me whether the miller was an actual person or merely legendary? Is the saying proverbial, or does it contain a literary reminiscence? I am told that Spedding has a note on the passage, but

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IN my reply at the latter reference I endeavoured to justify the statement made by Marshman, Davenport Adams, and myself that Sir Charles Napier was the author of the well-known pun, to which a mere reference was made in Punch more than a year afterwards on 18 May, 1844. I showed that Peccavi lay on the tip of Napier's tongue in 1843, that he was given to making puns, and that tradition, maintained for so many years, was a safer guide than the doubts of recent questioners who refused to believe without the annexation of Sind was seeing the very dispatch. I explained that a burning question in Parliament and the Press; that the dispatches given to Parliament, biographers, were fissured with omissions, well as Napier's letters published by his being labelled extracts"; and that the disappearance of the imprudent punning dispatch was the most natural thing. I promised to give your readers the result of further inquiry.

as

I wrote to the Commissioner in Sind, and have received in reply the statement that

none of the originals of the dispatches of Sir Charles Napier or of Lord Ellenborough's replies

exist on the records. All these documents are believed to have been removed many years ago to the Government of India's secretariat."

I turned next to the vaults of the India Office, where I found a copy of a dispatch transmitted home by the Government of Lord Ellenborough which runs as follows:

Palace of Agra, March 6, 1843. GENERAL,I received to-day your original dispatch and letter of the 21st and the plan of your battle.

You have indeed placed all Sinde at our disposal, and you have done so without an error. I most cordially congratulate you. I have begged Lt. Col. Stuart, the Military Secretary, to prepare an order relative to the course to be pursued by the Prize Agents which will, I hope, effect all you desire.

I have, &c.,

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ELLENBOROUGH. To Major-General Sir Charles Napier, K.C.B. In the margin of this time-worn record is noted the fact that neither letter nor dispatch appears to have been sent to the Court of Directors." I wrote then to Lord Colchester, to inquire whether he had a copy of this dispatch, and, if so, whether the letter and dispatch referred to were attached. His Lordship has been unable to find Lord Ellenborough's dispatch amongst his papers. I proceed to place before your readers two interpretations of this dispatch of 6 March, 1843. The most obvious inference to be drawn from its brevity and its relegation to official channels of the official issues involved is that it was intended to dispose

of the original dispatch," and merely to acknowledge ad interim the receipt of the letter and plan. By "original" the Governor-General meant something new and uncommon, not the signed authentic dispatch as opposed to a copy, for, of course, Napier wrote first hand and directly to the Governor

دو

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General. Then the comment "You have indeed placed all Sinde at our disposal refers to the uncompromising "Peccavi (I have Sind), while the reference is worked out, and you have done so without an error, or, in other words, and you have not sinned.' That seems to me a legitimate construction to put on the dispatch. On the other hand, those who cannot accept that view argue that " original despatch means only a dispatch of earlier date than 21 Feb. And it may be admitted that the first and fullest dispatch written after the battle was dated 18 Feb. This, however, still leaves the "letter of the 21st "unexplained, and the opponents of the views which I put forward are obliged to admit that no letter of 21 Feb. can be found. But they assume that it dealt with the capture of the city of Hyderabad. As to Ellenborough's remark

"without an error," they explain it as a reference to Napier's full or original dispatch of 18 Feb., in which he wrote, "My conscience acquits me of the blood which has been shed.

Between these two inferences to be drawn from the dispatch of 6 March, 1843, your readers must judge. But, at any rate, I can add to the weight of tradition. When I served in Sind in 1876 the authorship of the pun was not questioned, and I here reproduce part of a letter from Mr. Frank Hutt, residing at Petersfield, which gives support to the correctness of the tradition. Speaking of his father, Mr. Hutt writes on 24 June, 1913, that he

"took part in the Sind campaign, he commanded a battery of artillery at Meanee, was at one time on Sir Charles Napier's staff, and must have been intimately connected with him from letters I have in my possession." Such a witness is valuable, and Mr. Hutt writes :

"I have on more than one occasion heard my father refer to the fact that the message Peccavi was sent by Sir Charles Napier after the conquest of Sind. These statements were made when he was Secretary to the Board of Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital, and in full possession of his mental faculties, about the year 1880." Mr. Hutt adds an interesting specimen of Napier's puns. His father applied for leave, and Napier is reported to have replied: "You would be much better employed in hutting your men."

letters do not contain a reference to the That official dispatches and published pun does not seem to me to throw the least doubt on the tradition. No one can read the debates in Parliament on the annexation without feeling that levity and humour would then have jarred on the public sentiment and given the Opposition a stick with which to belabour Napier. Obviously therefore jests were kept out of official records and papers presented to Parliament. W. LEE-WARNER.

THE PAY OF A CARDINAL (11 S. vii. 488). It is a difficult and uncertain query put by the questioner CATHOLICOS regarding the yearly stipend of a Cardinal of the Roman Church. The usual pay is 12,000 scudi, equal to 60,000 lire, for what is called the piatto Cardinalizio. But there are many sources of augmentation of the income. Besides the piatto Cardinalizio, or regular stipend, each member of the Sacred College differs from the others through the title and importance of his bishopric, receiving a further annual revenue, or mensa vescovile.

varying from 10,000 to 30,000 lire according to the value of the property allotted to the bishopric. For example, I remember the Bishopric of Capri was called delle quaglie, as the income was derived partly from quails ensnared in nets when crossing the island en route from Africa to Europe. Incalculably larger is the pay of the head of a Congregazione, such as the "Propaganda Fide," Propaganda Fide," Speditore di Brevi,” "Elemosiniere Apostolico," 66 Segretario di Stato," "Nunzio,"

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&c.

I once learned from a relative of a certain cardinal, whose name I withhold, that he received half a million lire for performing a nuptial ceremony in the United States. Of course, many expenses fall heavily on all members of the College of Cardinals, such as almsgiving and charges for expensive ceremonials, and functions devolving on each individual holder of the office in turn.

CATHOLICOS concludes his query by asking, "How do English cardinals, when there are any, live?" I cannot specialize from knowledge, but I was present in Rome when Cardinals Newman, Manning, and Howard received their hats, and heard the two latter preach a sermon on acceptance of what was called their "titular church," one at San Gregorio and the other at S. Maria in Trastevere. They were both bishops before being made cardinals, and doubtless the necessary funds were supplied as in the case of the Italians.

known.

It is recorded in the 'Postal Guide' as applied with various terminations to no fewer than twenty-five places in Ireland, against three only in the rest of the United Kingdom. These three are: Derryhill, Calne, Wilts; Downderry, St. Germans, Cornwall; and Londonderry, Yorkshire.

I am inclined to think that Derry" is really a family name. It is a name well known for some generations at least in Plymouth. Men of the name have been bankers, doctors, lawyers, and merchants, and one at least was three times mayor of Plymouth.

As to its meaning in this connexion, however, I have been foiled. In neither of four books on names that I examined at our public library is the name mentioned. Baring-Gould, Wagner, to say nothing of Miss Charlotte Yonge, throw no light on the subject.

and I venture to think that Ireland is the Evidently there is much yet to be learnt, place wherein to search, and I would hope that further light may come through the original querist.

"RAISING FEAST"

W. S. B. H.

This custom prevails largely throughout (11 S. vii. 488).— Switzerland, and I myself in 1905, when building operations were going on for the had to give and pay for a feast to the workenlargement of my then residence here, This feast takes place here after the highest bit of the roof has been set up, and on it is planted a pine tree, decorated with streamers (the Aufrichtungsfest,' origin of the English name, the tree not Raising Feast "). This is no doubt the being the house is reached. till the topmost point of

I take it that the element in its name that requires elucidation is the derry," the fact that it is down by the sea, and can only be reached by land after going down & long, steep descent, shows the appropriate ness of the “ Down."

What, then, can be said about "derry The N.E.D.' knows it not, nor the Encyclopædia Britannica,' except as part of the refrain "Hey derry down, derry down derry," &c., and the true meaning of this is merely surmise. As a place-name Derry, or in full Londonderry, is, of course, well

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"" raised

Grindelwald.

W. A. B. COOLIDGE.

or

ASHFORD FAMILY (11 S. vii. 29, 118).In the centre of the main road at Irishtown, a few miles from Dublin, is a pillar memorial to Dr. William Ashford, with the words on one side :

"Erected Jan., 1893, by subscription, to commemorate the memory of Dr. Wm. Ashford, for the valuable services he rendered for a period of half a century to the Poor of St. Mary's Parish." On another side :

:

"Born 2nd December, 1810. Died 15th July, 1892."

He was noted for seldom charging the poor for his services; also for his many acts of charity in the district.

WILLIAM MACARTHUR,

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UNICORN'S HORN (11 S. vii. 450; viii. 16). -At none of the references given in the Editorial note is this query answered, nor is it possible to give any definite answer without seeing the particular horn referred to. As Sir Thomas Browne says, 'There be many Unicornes -some fabulous, some real. There can, however, be little doubt that the unicorn's horn used in medicine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the horn of the narwhal. Pomet, writing in 1694, says that in his time this was so; our Alleyne, in 1733, is less definite. His words are:

"This is a great fish found in Davis's Streights. It has two great tusks like those of an Elephant and of the same nature....What is commonly sold for Unicorn's horn is nothing else but bones of Whales, Sea Horses, or Elephants, which are brought by art into that shape.' The two-horned "fish" he describes is apparently itself the sea-horse, or walrus. The sea-unicorn, or narwhal, is, however, as Sir Thomas Browne says, that with which contemporary descriptions of unicorn's horn best agree, though some of the older and more famous examples are thought by the same writer to be the horns of the "Indian Asse." As much as 20,000l. of our present money is said to have been given for a unicorn's horn in France in 1553; another, at Dresden, was valued at 75,000 thalers. In spite of the uncertainty of its origin, the unicorn's horn kept its place in our London pharmacopoeia until 1746. It was a favourite sign with the old apothecaries, on account of its supposed alexipharmic properties. C. C. B.

:

COLLEGES MATRICULATION AND GRADUATION (11 S. vii. 409, 474).-The inquiry as to migration from one college to another points to some interesting distinctions between older times and our own, Nowadays a student is much in the habit of choosing a college for himself. He selects what he thinks is a

"nice college one where his schoolfellows are to be found, or where the boat is high on the river, or where there is some other such social inducement. This being so, he seldom finds reasons for quitting his college.

In old times the bulk of the poorer students-scholars and sizars-were determined in their choice by pecuniary reasons. The fellowships and scholarships-which were far more numerous, relatively, than is now the case-were, for the most part, confined to certain counties or districts. Of course parents and guardians (the boys themselves were mostly too young to exercise a choice)

took this into account, with the result that certain colleges were fed, to a preponderating extent, from certain districts. But after a few terms of residence a student would often find that his prospects had changed. He discovered, perhaps, that the fellowships open to one of his county were already filled up, but that he had a good chance elsewhere. Or he found on subsequent inquiry that some scholarship or sizarship for which he was qualified was to be had at another college. These considerations prevailed till comparatively recent times. For instance, Mackenzie, the well-known bishop in Central Africa, entered at St. John's. He found, before long, that his prospects in the Tripos he was second to Todhunter in 1848were certain to secure a fellowship elsewhere, but that, as a Scotchman, he was precluded from one at his own college. Accordingly he migrated, before graduation, to Caius.

We have here, I am convinced, the principal cause for migration. But other reasons existed. For instance, in Elizabethan times religious considerations were powerful. Many a youth found after some experience that the prevalence of Puritanism or Romanism, as the case might be, damaged Sometimes, his prospects at his own college. too, a popular tutor changed his college, and took his pupils with him. When Dr. Legge was brought to Caius he half emptied his J. VENN. own college, Jesus. Caius College.

In his search has MR. EWING looked under EWING OF IRELAND (11 S. vii. 387).— Euene and Ewen, for it appears the name was thus variously rendered ?

In my collection of book-plates I have the late eighteenth-century plate of one William Ewing. The arms are : Arg. a chev. embattled az. ensigned on the top, with a flag gu. between two mullets in chief, and a sun in base (no tinctures for the mullets and sun are given). Crest: a demilion holding a mullet (no tincture). Motto, "Audaciter."

Can MR. EWING identify this Wm. Ewing? CHAS. HALL CROUCH. 62, Nelson Road, Stroud Green, N.