78
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. in. JAN. as, 1911.
I doubt whether it is possible for us at
this time to specify them, and I cannot find
that Mr. Pitt ever enumerated them. In his
speech in Parliament (18 April, 1785) he
expressed his belief that the House would
agree with him in thinking that " there
were about 36 boroughs so decayed as to
come within the scheme," and he proposed
" the establishment of a fund fa million
Eounds] for the purpose of purchasing the anchise of such boroughs as might be induced to accept of it " (' Parl. Hist.,' xxv. 441-2).
This language seems to me to show that he necessarily left the names of the boroughc in the dark. The Western counties of England by themselves would have provided a sufficient number of Parliamentary boroughs which were ripe for extinction.
W. P. COURTNEY.
Unless the names of the burghs proposed to be disfranchised by Pitt are contained in the Journals of the House of Commons, it is hard to say where a complete list of them may now be found. The following works might be consulted : Stockdale's ' Parliamentary Guide ' for 1785, or ' De- bates and Parliamentary Register .... from 1780 to 1796,' published by Debrett. Massay's ' History of England during the Reign of George III.,' vol. i. chap, ix., deals at some length with the subject of corrupt constituencies. Earl Stanhope (' History of England from the Peace of Utrecht,' vol. i. chap, i.) gives a list of 35 " hereditary seats," which probably coincides to some extent with the list of Pitt. The Rev. Christopher Wyvill, Rector of Black Notley, published a work bearing directly on Pitt's Bill, entitled ' Summary Explanation of the Principles of Mr, Pitt's intended Bill for Amending the Representation of the People in Parliament ' 1785. He also wrote, ' State of the Repre- sentation of the People of England/ 1793, and
- Political and Historical Arguments proving
the Necessity of Parliamentary Reform,' 1811, 2 vols., but I cannot say whether he gives the names of burghs to be disfranchised.
As regards Wilkes, it is scarcely likely that any list of the burghs he proposed to wipe out can now be found. His speech, how- ever, in bringing forward his measure, is still extant, and may be read in " The Treasury of British Eloquence .... Compiled by Robert Cochrane," Edinburgh, W. P. Nimmo, 1881, pp. 165-9. In the course of his speech he names some ten or a dozen burghs to which the term " rotten " used to be applied. W. SCOTT.
RATS AND PLAGUE (11 S. ii. 465).
" Accordingly it appears that the priests
and diviners then knew that ' scientific
basis ' " is the ending of my Note 2431 in
The Boston Evening Transcript's ' Noter>
and Queries ' of 10 September, 1910 ; and
this note can doubtless be seen in the file of
that periodical at its London office, 3,
Regent Street, by any interested in coinci-
dences. My note was based on a dim
remembrance of a similar article in The
New York Evening Post of about ten years
ago, so the parallel is not novel, as thought
by CANON SAVAGE.
Further light is thrown by Baikie's * Sea Kings of Crete,' pp. 167-8 ; and that the rats are not directly responsible for spreading: the plague, but merely as they are" hosts " for fleas, may be inferred from a paper read before the (London) Zoological Society on 15 November, and briefly recorded in The Athenceum of 10 December, p. 738.
ROCKINGHAM.
Boston, Mass.
HACKNEY AND TOM HOOD (11 S. iii. 29). Hood slightly alters Byron's ' Childe Harold,' canto iii. st. 21 : There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gather'dthen Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men.
WALTER W. SKEAT. [MB. T. BAYNE and DIEGO also refer to Byron.]
GOATS AND Cows (11 S. ii. 466, 534). George Eliot was evidently cognizant of this custom. In ' Middlemarch ' (1881 ed. r p. 291), when describing the old farm home- stead called Freeman's End, she says r " There was an aged goat (kept doubtless on interesting superstitious grounds) lying against the open back-kitchen door."
See also 9 S. v. 248, 359, 521 ; vi. 132, 196, JOHN T. PAGE.
Long Itchingtorj, Warwickshire.
" PUCKLED "(US. ii. 526). The ' N.E.D/ records the word " puck-led " s.v. " Puck,' r sb. 1 e, but gives no such early quotation as that produced by MR. PIERPOINT.
L. R. M. STRACHAN.
Heidelberg.
CAP!. WlTHAM AND THE SlEGE OF GIBRAL- TAR (US. iii. 28). The incident referred to is not to be found in Drinkwater's ' History of the late Siege of Gibraltar,' although that writer gives a full account of the sortie made on the night of 26 November, 1781, along with a plan of the operations. He even condescends upon details, as where he
