316
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vm. OCT. is, 1913.
The Act referred to is, perhaps, the one
passed in 1803 :
" An Act for remedying certain defects in the laws relative to the building and repairing of county bridges and other works maintained at the expense of the inhabitants of the counties of England." 43 Geo. III. c. 59, 24 June, 1803.
In this Act there is no width defined, but the point of it was the limitation of respon- sibility for the upkeep of bridges to those which had been erected under the control of the county surveyors.
A. L. HUMPHREYS.
"SLAV SCHOLAR" (11 S. viii. 249).- Generally speaking, gentile adjectives and the apocopated form in which a .language is expressed are identical in our language, and may therefore give rise to ambiguity, though more, perhaps, in appearance than in practice. If an Englishman is called a " Slav scholar," it means, of course, that he is an expert in the Slav languages, just as if he were called a German scholar it would mean that he was an expert in the German language and literature. But if we called a German a German scholar, we should merely mean that he was a learned German. Elmsley and Person were great Greek scholars ; Hermann and Wolf were great Greek scholars ; they all, that is, were experts in the Greek language. But Elmsley and Person were also great English scholars that is, they were learned English- men, just as Hermann and Wolf were great German scholars, or learned Germans. Hence the English practice for it can scarcely be called a rule is that in speaking of a man's own language the gentile adjec- tive is denoted ; whereas in respect of the language belonging to another nationality, the apocopated form is indicated.
In a few cases the gentile and apocopated forms differ. An Arabic, Hebrew, or Latin scholar would mean a person, of whatever nationality, who is an expert in those languages ; an Arab, Jewish, or Roman scholar would mean a learned person belong- ing to Arabia, Jewry, or Rome.
In answer to PROF. KRTJEGER'S inquiry, " Can an ' English ' scholar be also a scholar in English ? " I would reply, Undoubtedly he can, but the significance which an English- man would attach to the expression would be that he was an English man of learning. Scholarship in his own language may form a part of his equipment, but in such a phrase the word " scholar " would generally be held to apply to the classical languages of Greece and Rome. W. F. PRIDEAUX.
Two POEMS WANTED (11 S. viii. 129, 193),
1. The verses asked for by DR. E. ANGAS
JOHNSON are as follows :
FLOWERS OF THE OCEAN. Call us not weeds, we are flow'rs of the sea For lovely and bright and gay-tinted are we ; Our blush is as deep as the rose of thy bowers. Then call us not weeds we are ocean's gay flowers.
Not nursed like the plants of a summer parterre, Where gales are but sighs of an evening air ; Our exquisite, fragile, and delicate forms Are nursed by the ocean, and rocked by the
storms.
They occur in a volume by L. E. Aveline y entitled ' The Mother's Fables,' and pub- lished in 1861. F. HAYWARD.
WHICHCOTE IN WILTS (11 S. viii. 209,254). From such works of reference as I have at hand the only place I consider at all likely to be Whichcote in Wilts is a so-called manor named indifferently Wyklescote, WikeL scote, or Wyghelscote. I am unable to locate this place exactly, but it would appear to be in the neighbourhood of Wroughton and Woot- ton Bassett. It may still linger on as a farmhouse- or field-name. There is Wilcot, near Pewsey, which may once have been Whichcote.
Whit.cott Key sett, in the parish of Clun y is probably the place in Shropshire alluded to as Whichcote.
WTiere has the querist come across this place ? E. A. FRY.
227, Strand, W.C.
MATDA: NAKED SOLDIERS (US. iv. 110 r 171,232,271,334,492; v. 14, 115, 195). On seeing the discussion about this in recent years I remembered a similar incident in the Philippine War, but the letter describing it was classified, not wisely, but too well to be available. It is now recovered. The writer is my brother, Frederick Edmunds, 2nd Oregon Volunteers. I quote the per- tinent portion :
" Manila, P. L, June 10, 1899 A laughable
incident occurred on our trip into the interior, after we had captured the town of Norzagaray- It was a fearfully hot day, and just on the other side of the town was a beautiful river, a hundred yards wide and five feet deep, clear as crystal. The white quartz pebbles at the bottom shone like pearls. Several hundred men immediately stripped and plunged in, and in the midst of the fun the insurgents opened up on us from the opposite bank. A photograph of the wild stampede for rifles on shore would have been a fine souvenir, as also the novel sight we made a moment afterwards, swung out in skirmish line simply clothed in an ammu- nition belt ! Many of us were badly sunburned when we again came back to finish our ablutions.'" ALBERT J. EDMUNDS.
Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
