98
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. iv. JULY 29, 1911.
princelets, and others who considered them-
selves very important people, used to meet
there for hunting, and dine afterwards.
For some years Lord Chesham, who was killed
in the hunting field, used it as a hunting-box.
The house is now temporarily occupied
as a private dwelling-house by Mr. Peter
Brotherhood junior, the engineer, whose
factory was formerly in the Belvedere
Road, Lambeth (on the site on which the new
County Council Hall is being built), and
is now at Peterborough. What will become
of the old house the future will decide.
In the same village is another old inn, with the sign " Ye Olde Mermaide " and at the bottom " Wansford in England," which, I was told, had been placed there by the landlord on the removal of the old sign of " The Haycock." A. RHODES.
MILITARY EXECUTIONS (11 S. iv. 8, 57). I know of no order on this subject, but it was always understood that a firing party of twelve men were given twelve muskets already loaded, half with ball and half with blank. No man of such a party firing together could possibly tell the difference in sound of one musket from another.
R. PHIPPS, Colonel late R.A.
As an ex-soldier, I must disagree with MB. JAGGARD. The procedure of a military execution does not permit of any of the firing party knowing, prior to pressing the trigger, whether he is using ball or blank cartridge. The rifles are loaded by the acting provost-marshal, half with ball and half with blank, previously to the arrival of the squad (usually twelve in number), and he hands the weapons to the men from a table just in rear of the firing-point. Arms are kept " sloped " until the order for " present " is given. This occurs before the prisoner is marched upon the ground and bound to a chair, should he be unable to stand. As the firing party are well aware that the provost -marshal will complete the sentence with his revolver, should signs of life be pre- sent after the volley, to prevent unnecessary suffering, aiming high or wide is no way out of doing one's duty. Of course, when the trigger lias been pressed, the recoil indicates the kind of charge ; but the difference in sound between the two cartridges could not be distinguished in a mixed ball and blank volley. There still remains the uncertainty of his particular bullet being the fatal one, when a man finds from the recoil or the empty cartridge case that his rifle was loaded with ball. In pre-cartridge days the object was
obtained by omitting the bullet from half
the muskets given out to the firing party,
the other details being as above.
CHARLES S. BTJRDON.
An extract from an account of a military execution in India, taken from Stocqueler's
- British Soldier,' may perhaps be worth
attention :
" A firing party, consisting of sixteen men, was now selected from the prisoner's regiment, and moved up to the rear of the butts, where the muskets which had been loaded by the quarter^ master sergeant, under the superintendence of an officer, were given them, and they then took up a position on the left flank of the western face.' r
According to this account, only two persons were aware which of the muskets were loaded. Row TAY.
ST. DUNSTAN AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS
(11 S. iii. 489; iv. 54). I am obliged to MR. RHODES for referring me to ' The Ingoldsby Legends.' I have, however, so far been unable to obtain any information concerning the legend as relating to the Tun- bridge Wells springs. The following extract from Thomas Benge Burr's ' History of Tun- bridge Wells ' (published in 1766) probably refers to it :
" There are many different accounts of the first discovery of those celebrated springs called 1 Tunbridge Wells. And that there should be some miraculous stories amongst others cannot be an object of wonder to those who know that the origin of places. . . .were in the dark ages of super- stition and priestcraft generally ascribed to the extraordinary interposition of some avaricious saint whose credit the monks of the time found themselves interested to advance."
It seems to be fairly well established that St. Dunstan lived at Mayfield, and the tongs referred to by MR. BAYLEY together with " St. Dunstan' s anvil and sword " are, I believe, to be still seen at Mayfield Palace (now a convent).
R. VAUGHAN GOWER,
Ferndale Lodge, Tunbridge Wells.
REV. THOMAS CLARKE, OF CHESHAM Bors (11 S. ii. 129, 352). The above-named Thomas Clarke, a member of Brasenose College, Oxford, was the son of Thomas Clarke of Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire.
The ' Brasenose College Register ' fur- nishes the information that Thomas Clarke (Lancashire), Batteler, was entered in the buttery book, 6 July, 1739, paid caution and matriculated (pleb. fit.) 7 July, 1739, aged 19; graduated B.A. 28 Feb., 1743/4; elected Hulme Exhibitioner, I Feb., 1744/5 ; removed name 7 Jan., 1747/8 ; died 1793. DANIKL. HIPWELL.
