11 S. XL MAR. 27, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
247
Birkenhead. He remembered Capt. G. A.
Lucas, who died last year at Abersoch,
Carnarvonshire, appealing to his men to
help him to keep order, whilst the women
and children were being sent off in the boats.
Shortly after part of the ship broke, and
went down, and they were all thrown into
the sea. Lucas got ashore after being in the
sea fourteen hours.
FBEDEBICK T. HIBGAME.
LONDON'S SPAS, BATHS, AND WELLS. A very full account of these appears in the December, 1914, issue of the Proceedings of the Boyal Society of Medicine (Longmans), being a Presidential Address by Dr. Septimus Sunderland. I append the account of the Old Boman Spring Bath in the Strand :
" The most interesting amongst the Olden Baths of London which have enjoyed a reputation for health -restoring properties is the Old Roman Spring Bath, because this bath still remains as one of the few relics of Roman London. It was probably built about two thousand years ago, in the time of Titus or Vespasian. It may still be seen at No. 5, Strand Lane (near King's College), on Saturday mornings between 11 and 12 o'clock. It is supplied with clear water coming from springs
- at Hampstead, and was considered to be the over-
flow from St. Clement's Holy Well in the vicinity. The bath, rounded at one end and square at the other, is in the centre of a fair-sized vaulted chamber, solidly built, and lit by a little semi- circular window ; it is formed of thin tile-like bricks, layers of cement, and rubble- stones, all corresponding with the materials of the Roman wall of London, and now patched together with modern concrete. The walls of the chamber have recently been strengthened with modern tiles. The marble stones forming the floor of the bath were in 1893 fitted from the adjoining bath built by Lord Essex. On one side of the bath are a few stairs or tiers. Its length is 13ft., breadth 6 ft., and depth 4 ft. 6 in. It is said that the volume of water pours up at the rate of some 10 tons a minute [?]. The bath is now the property of Mr. Glave, of Oxford Street, whose father kept it for his private use, and lived to be 90 years of age. On the wall at the entrance to the bath is the following notice painted on a board : Old Roman Plunge Bath. Open to Bathers all the year round.
This Bath has a continual flow of spring water
(10 tons daily) [?]. Annual tickets only issued, Two guineas.
Apply 80, New Oxford Street, W. Charles Dickens refers to this bath in 'David Copperfield.'
" Adjoining the Roman bath and deriving its water supply from it was another bath of hectagonal shape, The Templar's Bath, used for three centuries by residents in the Temple, and closed in 1893. It was built in 1588 by the Earl of Essex, whose house was near. The site is now covered by the larder of the Norfolk Hotel, erected in 1880."
WM. H. PEET. [See also 11 S. vi.348, 432.]
BEETHOVEN'S^NATIONALITY. I beg to
forward an excerpt from The Morning Post
of the 5th inst. in the hope that you may
consider it worthy of entrance to your
columns or, I should have said, not un-
worthy- the first paragraph at all events :
" To the Editor of The Morning Post.
" Sm, There is living in Penzance a Monsieur de Prin, formerly organist of Cork Roman Catholic Cathedral. He told the Rev. Vernon Russell, assistant organist of Westminster Roman Catholic Cathedral, that his ancestor was choirmaster at Lou vain, and had amongst his Belgian choirmen one who was so troublesome that he had to be dis- missed. He then went to Germany, where he lived for the future. His name was Beethoven, and he was the father of Ludvig van (note that it is not the German von) Beethoven. A friend of M. de Prin's, a notary in Louvain, inquired of members of the Beethoven family, what they knew of their relation, the 'great musician.' Being ignorant people, they did not recognise any one of such a de- scription at first, but at last the notary managed to make it clear whom he meant. Then said one of them, 'Oh ! That fellow! He was no good; he was always trying to get at an organ.' I saw it stated elsewhere, I think in Musical Opinion of either January or of December, that Beethoven was a Belgian.
" As to J. S. Bach, he was surely of Hungarian descent, while, of course, Mendelssohn was a Jew. Is it not, therefore, wrongly claimed by the Ger- mans that these men were of their nationality? Yours, &c., G. D. McGnEGOE.
"Penzance, March 4."
A. VAN DE PUT,
Assistant Keeper. Victoria and Albert Museum.
BLACK WOOL AS A CUBE FOB DEAFNESS. (See ante, p. 118.) Amongst recent notes on the subject of ' Onions and Deafness ' I was particularly interested in the quota- tions from Wesley's ' Primitive Physic,' mentioning the use of black wool in this connexion, contributed by your correspond- ent MB. S. T. H. PABKES. The belief in the efficacy of black w r ool for aural troubles is evidently of considerable antiquity. In Webster's ' Duchess of Malfy ' (circa 1614), III. ii., one of the officers of the Duchess's household, speaking contemptuously of her steward Antonio, who is in disgrace, ob- serves :
"He stopped his ears with black wool, and to those that came to him for money, said he was thick of hearing."
None of the commentators on the play offer any explanation of this passage, and for a long time I vainly endeavoured to discover why black rather than any other wool was mentioned, until one day I lighted upon the following passage in certain ' Depositions] from York Castle ' taken in
