11 S. X. DEO. 19, 1914.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
499
This word is not in the least likely
to become obsolete. The numbers and
distribution given ante, p. 447, are not
quite correct. A platoon consists of four
sections, and there are from two to four
platoons to a company. Four companies
make a battalion, and four battalions a
brigade. A battalion consists of from eight
to sixteen platoons, which are numbered
consecutively.
The Central Association Volunteer Train- ing Corps are organizing in some instances on the basis of eighteen men to a section. This, at full strength, gives 1,152 men to a volun- teer battalion, apart from supernumeraries, i.e., platoon and higher officers. A. A.
According to the new drill book, ' Infantry Training, 1914,' a company consists of four platoons, and a platoon of four sections ; but in practice there may be fewer in each case. I understand that the revival of the platoon in the British Army was a consequence of the entente cordiale, the object being to assimilate the organization to that of the French Army. A. MOBLEY DAVIES.
"CORDWAINEB" (11 S. x. 247, 296, 334, 375, 393, 435). On looking through the first hundred pages of the Poll-Book for the County of York, 20 May-5 June, 1807, I find " Cordwainer " as the descrip- tion of 87 of the freeholders who voted, as against 18 described as " Shoemakers." " Cordiner," as a surname, occurs twice within the same limit, which is something less than a quarter of the volume. In 1795 was published in London " Remark- able Ruins and Romantic Prospects of North Britain, by Charles Cordiner, of Banff." W. B. H.
CLOCKS AND CLOCKMAKEBS (11 S. x. 310, 354, 458). MB. ROLAND AUSTIN would save a constant reader of ' N. & Q.' some little trouble and delay if he would be obliging enough to summarize what Britton, and Cescinsky and Webster, say as to " Act of Parliament clocks." A query (unanswered) about them was inserted ante, p. 130, signed ST. S'WITHIN.
"GOAL -MONEY" (11 S. x. 450). In connexion with the use of the word " goal," I should like to say that in the use of many persons the words " goal " and " gaol " were synonymous, meaning one and the same thing. It was customary to say of a "ne'er- do-well " : " Ay ! leave him alone, hey '11 find his own goal " meaning jail.
THOMAS RATCLIFFE.
on looks.
Shakespeare's Environment. By Mrs. C. C..
Stopes. (Bell & Sons, la. 6d.)
THERE have been many minor discoveries about Shakespeare of late years to reward the tireless zeal of the searchers of records, and, as this book and others we could name bear witness, Mrs. Stopes has had her share of " good hunting " like the rest. In this volume of collected papers- some, like that on ' Early Piccadilly,' are but remotely connected with the theme indicated by the book's title, but all illustrate some phase of Tudor or Stuart life, from Court fools and learned ladies for like her predecessor Mrs. Ann Merrick, who flourished in 1638, Mrs. Stopes unites to " the Study of Shakespeare " that of " the History of Women " to the literary expenses of Westminster churchwardens, or the scholarly library of a Warwickshire curate. From a Shake- spearian point of view, perhaps the most inter- esting fresh details are those which concern two- indifferent business men, the poet's father and uncle John, the " merry cheeked," and Henry Shakespeare. The latter seems to have been an impracticable man who was frequently at logger- heads with the authorities, lay and ecclesiastical : in 1574 he was fined 3s. 4d. for drawing blood to Edward Cornwell's injury and against the Queen's peace ; in 1581 he was excommunicated for contumacious refusal to pay tithe. He lived in. debt, and in debt he died, and there is a miserable incident recorded of an importunate creditor- seizing the oxen on the farm when Henry Shake- speare had been dead scarce two hours. John- Shakespeare fared rather better than his brother* mainly, perhaps, because he had a son to stand by him ; but he also could not keep on the fair-weather side of the law Mrs. Stopes has discovered in the Coram Rege rolls entries showing that on one occasion he made himself liable to fines amount- ing to 40?. ; he was in constant financial distress, and a perpetual and blundering litigant. His relatives by marriage, though, were careful and moneyed folk who lent money on good security, and laid up house to house and field to field. They were shrewd, too, and in the affair of the mortgage of Asbies, the Lamberts contrived to get the better of the Shakespeares at law, even though Mrs. Stopes thinks that William (no mean lawyer,, say Baconians ) " probably instructed the attorneys and did all the formal duties of a complainant."
The Shakespeares appear to have been an early-dying family, and in the paper about Gilbert, son of John, a very good case is made out against the tradition Mrs. Stopes is always a sworn foe of tradition that one of the poet's brothers lived to extreme old age. It seems quito probable that Halliwell-Phillipps mistook the namo of Shepheard for Shakespeare in the Haber- dashers books, and that the Stratford burial entry of 1612 does refer to this brother, though the significance of " adolescens " in parish clerk's or curate's Latin passes the wit of man to discover. As for the poet's own " over-early " death, Mrs. Stopes 's implication that it was in any way con- nected with " the unhealthy spring damps of 1616 " strikes us as disingenuous. Equally void of evidence, too, is the notion that Anne Hatha- way was a delicate woman, and handed on hep
