434
NOTES AND QUERIES-
[11 S. V. JuNKl, 1912.
Dr. Gaspar will be able to give particulars.
I believe that the proceedings of the previous
Congresses have not been officially published,
and it is to be hoped that the Transactions
and Proceedings of the forthcoming meeting
will be permanently and officially recorded
by the Congress. THOMAS WM. HUCK.
Saffron Walden.
WILTSHIRE PHRASES (11 S. v. 326). B. B. states that the expression " as hard as Brazil " presumably came from Brazil wood, but personally I am of opinion that it came from the Brazil nut, the seed of the Bertholletia excelsa, a tree of the natural order Lecythidaceae. These nuts have a very hard shell, and would, I suspect, be better known in Wiltshire than Brazilian wood. HENRY HOWARD.
" As sour as a wig " is no doubt a corrup- tion of " as sour as whig," with which I have been familiar all my life. For " whig " see Nares, s.v. My mother used to give this name to sour whey, but properly it seems to have been a sour drink made from whey. Dray ton (quoted by Nares) has
With flawns and custards stor'd, Whig, cyder, and with whey, I domineer a lord.
C. C. B.
It is really a hard case that the ' English Dialect Dictionary ' should be ignored. It informs us that " as hard as Brazil " refers, not presumably, but certainly, to Brazil wood ; and that it is known in several parts of Yorkshire and Lancashire, in Cheshire, Staffordshire, Lincolnshire, and Montgomery. " As sour as a wig " is unmeaning ; it is a travesty of the Lincoln- shire " as sour as whig," where whig means " whey." Fess is simply fierce ; but it also means ill-tempered, lively, con- ceited, &c., and is known in Berks, Hants, Dorset, Somerset, and Devon, as well as in Wilts. " As deep as Garrick " is known in Somerset. WALTER W. SKEAT.
CAMDEN SOCIETY: ' LONG AGO ' (11 S. v. 328). This short - lived publication de- served a better fate. Only seventeen monthly numbers were published the first in Janu- ary, 1873, and the last in May, 1874. I was one of its subscribers and contributors; and have my set bound in one volume with my own manuscript index to the un- completed second volume. It is a quarto publication, the size of The Antiquary, of thirty-two pages monthly, price 6rf. The heading of each monthly part is : " Long
Ago. A monthly journal of popular anti-
quities : ' ; but, by one of those lapses of
which so many editors or printers are
guilty, the title-page differs from this in
omitting the word " Monthly," and having
a colon after " Long Ago " instead of a
full point. The magazine of course
"Journal" is a misnomer for a -monthly
publication was published by F. Arnold
at 86, Fleet Street, E.C. Some of the
articles in it were illustrated, and there
were plates of an old house at Enfield
and statues from the temple of Golgos, and
numerous inset blocks. As the publication
came to an untimely end in the middle of
vol. ii., it is probable that there are few
complete sets in existence.
FREDK. A. EDWARDS. 39, Agate Road, Hammersmith, W.
I do not think that Long Ago completed a second volume. No. 12, which is before me, is for December, 1873. I have a com- plete set, but cannot lay my hands upon it. Quite a number of ' N. & Q.' contri- butors helped it along, and it was, on the whole, an interesting monthly. I under- stand that it was started by Mr. Alexander Andrews in consequence of " a tiff " with some other antiquarian publication, and I believe that some time before its appear- ance he brought out another monthly periodical also short-lived of the same character. THOS. RATCLIFFE.
Worksop.
Long Ago had a short life ending suddenly at p. 156, vol. ii. On p. 43 is an article on ' A Sanitary Law ' by the late Alexander Andrews ; he, I presume, was the editor. In the fragment of vol. ii. are several notes by Edmund Tew.
HENRY FISHWICK.
MILITARY EXECUTIONS (11 S. iv. 8, 57, 98, 157, 193, 237, 295, 354, 413, 458 ; v. 52, 318). There is one more flaw in the theory of mixed cartridges to avoid responsibility which I failed to mention earlier. Nearly every one familiar with the rifle can tell the difference between a blank and a ball cartridge, on pressing the trigger, simply by the recoil, and without having seen the rifle loaded. In the older and obsolete weapons, or small arms, the recoil from a ball cartridge was even greater than now. While speaking of recoil, I may add that I have seen more than ( ne recruit's shoulder on the rifle range quite bruised and dis- coloured by the butt end, after he had fired a few shots, through inexperience in holding
