246
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. MAR. 25, 1916.
his corpse has been cremated, his relatives
pick out of its ashes the second vertebra of
the neck, which somewhat resembles the
Buddha sitting in meditation, and which
they preserve as the dead man's relic.
Seven years ago a Hampshire gentleman sent me a query if I could throw any light upon the alleged Japanese custom mentioned as following in the then just published ' The Siege of Port Arthur,' by Ashmead-Bart- lett :
" [After the capture of 203-Metre Hill.] As soon as a man was identified, he was carried down the mountain and then laid out to await crema- tion, the surgeon cutting out each man's Adam's apple in order that it might be sent to the rela- tions in Japan."
In my immediate reply I absolutely denied the existence, both past and present, of such
a usage, and suggested that the author's mis- interpretation of the above-quoted practice with the second cervical vertebra, as well as the lore of the Adam's apple, was the origin of the error on the author's part. And three years since, the same gentleman wrote me again, saying he had recently found the
custom to have been current among the Santhals of Bengal in India, the Adam's apple of a dead man being severed and taken to the sacred River Damuda. If this be so, I much desire to be informed of its details ^ind raison d'etre by any of your readers.
KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. Tanabe, Kii, Japan.
CURIOUS ANAGRAMS. The Sunday Times of Jan. 30, 1916, reproduces from its number for Jan. 29, 1826, the following :
" CURIOUS ANAGRAMS. Old England Golden land. Potentates Ten tea pots. Gallantries All great sin. Democratical Comical trade. Radical Reform Rare mad frolic . Penitentiary Nay, 1 repent it. Revolution To love ruin. Telegraph 'Great help. Amendment Ten mad men. En-
- cyclopedia A nice cold pye. Punishment Nine thumps."
' They are interesting, at least, as showing that the taste for such playing with words existed in London ninety years ago.
E. S. DODGSON. Oxford Union Society.
DR. JOHNSON'S KNOCKER. A firm of booksellers in New York offer in their recently issued catalogue, item No. 774 :
" Valuable Dr. Johnson Relic. The original Iron Knocker removed from the House at one Tfcime of Dr. Samuel Johnson [of Dictionary fame], at Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, London, B.C. The knocker is enclosed in a special morocco case. .... This interesting relic is mounted on an oak panel with the following inscription on a gold plate : ' This Iron Knocker, removed from the
House at one time the residence of Dr. Samuel
Johnson, is a silent link with the great past,' &c.
Inside the front lid of the case is a beautiful
hand-coloured miniature in [sic] ivory of the
house from which the knocker was removed ....
Included with the knocker is a written guarantee
of authenticity given by the British Museum
authorities."
The accompanying illustration shows a long drop knocker with conventional floral swags, the greater part of one being missing. It is difficult to identify the place illustrated, but I believe the artist has depicted the house in Gough Square, and that is what the cataloguer means by " Johnson's Court." I hope this eminently respectable firm will obtain the price asked ( $500.00), but I trust the " guarantee of authenticity " is not taken as responsible for the value.
ALECK ABRAHAMS.
" ALINEMENT." It may be worth noting that The Times has adopted the spellings " aline " and " alinement." And why not, if there is any value at all in analogy ? The French, from whom the current spellings are seemingly borrowed, are, as usual with them, consistent. We in imitating them are singularly inconsistent. E. L. P.
WE must request correspondents desiring in-
formation on family matters of only private interest
to affix their names and addresses to their queries,
in order that answers may be sent to them direct.
' A TALE OF A TUB.' I am engaged on a
new edition of Swift's* Tale of a Tub,' and
should be grateful for help in annotating
the following passages (references are given
to the Bohn edition) :
1. A most ingenious poet soliciting his brain
for something new, compared himself to the hang- man, and his patron to the patient. P. 41.
2. Ctesias had been used with much severity
by the true critics of his own age. P. 75.
3. Hemp some naturalists inform us, is bad
for suffocations, though taken but in the seed. P. 76.
4. A certain author does say of critics, that
their writings are the mirrors of learning. P. 77.
5. Painters Wives Island, placed in some un- known part of the ocean, merely at the fancy of the map-maker. P. 91.
6. A Curious Invention about Mouse-Traps. P. 93.
7. A straight line drawn by its own length into a circle. P. 111.
8. [He] who held anatomy to be the ultimate end of physic. P. 120.
9. The Spanish accomplishment of braying. P. 135.
10. 'Tis recorded of Mahomet, that, upon a visit he was going to pay in Paradise, he had an offer of
