298
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. i. APBIL 9, im
Theological School of Temple College " ; that
it is unsectarian, was opened in 1894, and
has Russell H. Conwell as Dean or President.
The number of professors is set down as 5,
special or assistant instructors 0, whole
number of students 42 (including 2 women),
years in the course, 5 (a foot-note to this
states that it is an evening school). There
are no entries in the columns headed
" Graduated in 1902," " Students having A.B.
or B.S.," " Value of Grounds and Buildings,"
"Endowment Funds," "Total Income in-
cluding Benefactions," " Benefactions re-
ceived," " Bound Volumes in Library."
DAVID SALMON.
DICKENS QUERIES (10 th S. i. 228, 272). I am now in a position to supply an answer to one of my queries from the Globe of 26 March :
" Two correspondents send the same solution of the question we quoted last week from Notes and Queries as to what Mr. Jingle meant when he desired the festive bottle to be passed 'through the button-hole.' The button-hole is, of course, always on the left lappel of the coat, and it is explained that Jingle's phrase means 'right to left' (i.e., 'the way of the sun '), just in the way that a posy would be brought to the button-hole from the right hand [rather, I should suppose, the way the button goes through]. One correspondent points out that in women's clothing the arrangement of buttons is reversed, but his inquiries as to the cause of this have been fruitless."
H. K. ST. J. S.
The expression " through the button-hole " appears to mean simply " from right to left," the bottle being naturally on the right, and button-holes from time immemorial on the left of the coat. The phrase is, therefore, an equivalent of the accompanying " way of the sun." I have seen this query asked and answered somewhere before, but it is not, as I thought, in Calverley's famous Examination Paper in 'Pickwick,' though other Jingle- phrases are. F. SIDGWICK.
[CoL. MALET also replies concerning " through the button-hole," and COL. DURAND about "Tama- roo."]
NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.
Cambridge Gild Records. Edited by Mary Bateson.
With Preface by William Cunningham, D.D.
(Cambridge, Deighton, Bell & Co.) Miss BATESON'S carefully edited work is a very useful addition to the gild literature which is at present accessible in a printed form. No pains have been spared to make it as useful as possible, and we are glad to find it nob burdened by useless or irrelevant notes. It is, however, quite evident that a great part of the documents relating to these interesting confraternities have been lost. Till recent days very little was known regarding the
mediaeval gilds, which were for the most part
ruthlessly swept away by the storms of the six-
teenth century. From what has now come to light
it is evident that they differed very much in
character and objects among themselves, but nearly
all had certain features in common : they relieved
the poor members of their own body, and had
religious services performed for the living and the
dead. The gild life of Cambridge goes back to pre-
Norman days ; but whether any of those bodies
whose records Miss Bateson has edited were de-
scendants of those of an earlier time may well be
questioned.
The surviving papers of eleven gilds are here reproduced. They all contain interesting things bearing on the domestic life of our predecessors, which indicate how free our ancestors of five hundred years ago were to combine for social benefits, and suggest, but do not prove, that such was the case in more remote days, concern- ing which direct evidence is wanting. Though not trade gilds in the strict sense, the Cambridge gilds sometimes transacted business from which they drew profit. They dealt in barley and malt, from which they made a small gain, and the gild of St. Mary traded in millstones. In the year 1319 it gained upwards of eight pounds by this means. Were these stones of the small sort commonly turned by hand, or were they the large stones used in wind or water mills? Some of them must have been of the latter kind, for we find that a pair were sold for the large sum of 3/. 10s. No indication is given as to the place where these stones were quarried. They may have come from Derbyshire or further north, but it is equally probable that they were imported through the Netherlands from some place on the Continent. Turf-diggers found some years ago near Nieuport a vessel laden with the stones of hand- mills buried about five feet deep in the peat. It is not impossible that this barge, when it sank, was making its way down a canal for the transshipment of its cargo. Quern-stones, we find from an Irish statute of 1662, were at that time imported into the sister island. In 1353 William de Lenne and his wife Isabella, on their becoming members of the gild of Corpus Christi, contributed to the expense of a play called ' The Children of Israel.' This probably was a representation of the slaughter of the Holy Innocents by order of Herod, as a copy of a drama on this subject, as Miss Bateson points out, has come down to us ; but it may quite pos- sibly have been a dramatic rendering of Moses leading his people out of Egypt. St. Mary's Gild had, we think, a special service for those who died of the Black Death. This was probably because many of them must have passed away without its being possible for the services of a priest to be procured. The bede rolls of St. Mary's Gild are sjiven in full, and the names, as well as all others in the book, have been carefully indexed.
BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES.
THE spring and Easter bookselling trade is evi- dently in full vigour, if we are to judge from the interesting catalogues we have received.
Mr. James Clegg, of Rochdale, sends List No. 46, Spring, 1904, containing theological works from the library of the Rev. R. S. Rowan and others. Among general literature we find the first edition of Addison's ' Remarks on Several Parts of Italy/
