430
NOTES AND QUERIES. [is s. i. MAY 27, uu.
for the advancement of learning. At any
rate, this saying, true or false, has acquired
considerable vogue, and is to be met with
in the correspondence of persons with pre-
tensions to culture ; and the meaning therein
conferred on " agnosco " appears to have
superseded the signification of that verb
according to Latin dictionaries. This strange
error is to be found even in Dr. Brewer's
' Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,' s.v.
4 Agnostic.' One wonders how the com-
piler of that work would have construed
Dido's confession : " Agnosco veteris vestigia
flammae." N. POWLETT, Col.
TOUCHING FOB LUCK. In a Birmingham factory, on the appearance of a sailor, the hands crowd round the visitor and touch him " for luck." Can any one supply a parallel case or comment ? There is nothing on the subject in the index to ' The Golden Bough,' nor in Brand and Ellis' s ' Popular Anti- quities ' (ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1905). I can only think of Matthew ix. 21 and xiv. 36. Touching for the King's Evil is, of course, given in both the works of reference named ; and Sir James Frazer quotes the Macleod touch. CHARLES SAYLE.
DEATH WARRANTS AND PARDONS.
(12 S. i. 49, 111, 157, 210, 289, 358.)
SIB HABBY POLAND has truly stated at a former reference that the King did not sign the Recorder's Warrant, of which Blackstone sets out the correct form.
But I am not sure that at some period he did not sign the " dead warrant " of which we constantly read in ' The Ordinary of Newgate, His Account/ from its earliest publication by the Rev. Paul Lorraine in Queen Anne's time ; in the examinations of Ford and Cotton, Ordinaries of Newgate during the latter half of George III.'s reign, by Parliamentary Committees and Commis- sions ; and in Edward Gibbon Wakefield's rather lurid ' Thoughts on Capital Punish- ment.'
True, searching among the MS. lists of those " Condemned to Dye " preserved at the Record Office, I have as yet met no royal signature, but I have met this in a criminal petition :
" The Dead Warrant will be signed by the Lords Justices (regents in George I.'s absence) to- morrow morning, for my execution on Monday next." S. P. Dora. Geo. L 23, No. 53, 14 Sept., 1720.
The HON. STEPHEN COLEBIDGE states
that on the S.W. Circuit he does not use an
Order for Execution. The Clerk of Assize
on the N.E. Circuit does, however, and it
runs, after the usual formal parts, thus :
- ' Whereas, at this present sessions of gaol de-
livery, A. B. is and stands convicted of murder, It is thereupon ordered and adjudged that the said A. B. be taken back to the prison where he was last confined before his trial, and there to a place of lawful execution, and that he be hanged by the neck until he is dead, and that his body be buried in the precincts of the prison in which he shall have been last confined.
"JOHN DOE,
" Clerk of Assize."
Anciently, and until recently, as SIB HABBY POLAND has reminded me, pardons had to pass under the Great Seal, but the use of that has for some time been discontinued, as also in the case of Commissions of Assize.
I transcribe a very recent pardon signed by His Majesty in respect of an offender whose order for execution I myself wrote out, when recently assisting in the Clerk of Assize office on the N.E. Circuit :
GEORGE R.I. [The King's own Sign Manual.]
GEORGE THE FIFTH by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, To our Justices of Assize for the North-Eastern Circuit, The High Sheriff for the County of York.
The Governor of Our Prison at Leeds and all others whom it may concern. Greeting !
WHEREAS was, at the Assizes, Leeds,
on the 15th March [1916], convicted of murder and sentenced to death
Now KNOW YE that We, in consideration of some circumstances humbly represented unto Us, are Graciously pleased to extend Our Grace and
Mercy unto the said and to grant unto
him Our Pardon in respect of the same on Con- dition that he be kept in Penal Servitude for Life.
Our Will and Pleasure therefore is that you do give the necessary directions accordingly ;
And for so doing this shall be a sufficient Warrant.
Given at Our Court of St. James's the tenth day of April 1916 in the Sixth year of Our reign
By His Majesty's Command HERBERT SAMUEL.
I find that this form is in almost identical language with that used in previous centuries. The royal seal is in the left-hand margin of the first paragraph, below a ten-shilling stamp.
The " Dead Warrant " was a list of those who, on the Recorder's report to His Majesty having been considered in Council, it was decided must suffer. The Ordinary, in, full canonicals, brought it down to the con- demned hole, and duly acquainted each
