Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/484

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NOTES AND QUERIES. ii2s,ii.D*c.9,i9i6.


.similar to the one set out, but the name of the recipient has been erased. He took a second class. At the foot is the signature " N Grattan, Pro?l r Princ 8 ," and the date, " Paschse, 1741." J. Fox, B.A., T.C.D. 17 BelRrave Crescent, Bath.

NAMES OF THE MOON (12 S. ii. 429). In the Lennox the district round Loch Lomond the full moon is, or used to be, known as " Macfarlane's lantern," I presume because it was favourable for raiding. I have never met with the term the Hunter's Moon, except in literature ; and the only instance I can remember is in the first stanza of the modern glee, ' All Among the Barley,' which begins :

Come out, 'tis now September, The hunter's moon's begun.

HERBERT MAXWELL. Monreith.

BIBLE AND SALT (12 S. ii. 390). The object of taking salt into the kitchen would be to bring luck. It figures as such in the " childs almings " of the northern counties of England. Over thirty years p.go I remember seeing a woman, upon taking up the tenancy of a house, go from room to room with a block of salt under one arm and a loaf of bread under the other and sprinkle salt in each corner.

A. E. OUGHTRED.

Castle Eden.

COLOURED BOOK-WRAPPERS (12 S. ii. 390)- For a long time collectors and librarians thought nothing of wrappers, but efforts are now made by all bibliophiles to preserve the book as it was issued by the publisher, a handsome binding being considered as a casket made to preserve the gem enclosed in it.

Few keepers of public institutions are really careful in this respect, the librarians of the Bodleian making a laudable exception. At Oxford, since the days of the late E. W. B. Nicholson, all wrappers, covers and adver- tisements are carefully preserved and bound up in each book.

Continental bibliophiles began to pay proper attention to wrappers and covers about 1872, when they started collecting early editions of nineteenth-century authors. They had the paper covers bound in not only the front and back covers, but also the labels from the narrow back of the book.

There Is a celebrated anecdote about Baron James E. de Rothschild who thought such fastidiousness somewhat childish and, one fine afternoon, showed his admiring friends an uncut and unopened copy of


Beranger's ' Chansons,' not bound, but carefully enclosed in a " pull-off " morocco case. What he then considered as an amusing freak, is now a time-honoured custom among bibliophiles; and it is hardly worth reminding readers what high prices have been, paid for really fine sets of Dickens's works in part s, with the earliest issue of each wrapper as much as 400Z.-500Z. having been given for absolutely perfect copies of ' Pickwick.'

In the eighteenth century wrappers, when used, were of plain, unlettered marbled paper, although a few instances may be quoted of books published about 1770 with printed labels or printed wrappers.

I believe that a few printed labels have been discovered pasted on the leather bindings of fifteenth-century books.

A history of wrappers and labels would prove an interesting chapter of the annals of book-making. SEYMOUR DE RICCI.

"YORKER": A CRICKET TERM (12 S ii. 209, 276, 376, 416). ST. SWITHIN says " yerk " and " york " may easily be sub- stituted for each other. In the Isle of Axholme, which is virtually in Yorkshire, the two sounds are sometimes confused. The family name "Torr," for instance, is pronounced as if written " Turr," and ' cork " becomes " kurk." I once heard a woman ask a chemist (a newcomer to the neighbourhood) if he sold " kurks." Evi- dently not understanding what was meant he said " No." " Then," asked the woman, " what do you stop your bottles wi' ? " " Oh," was the answer, " you mean corks." " Well," said the woman, " didn't I say . kurks ? " I do not think, how.-ver, that I ever heard this mispronunciation reversed : I doubt whether " yerker " would ever become " yorker " there. C. C, B.

MAYORAL TRAPPINGS (12 S. ii. 390). For the trappings (extra to the usual gown) of the Mayors of Bristol, Great Yarmouth, and Oxford, see the ' Introduction,' p. Ixxxvii., to Jewitt and Hope's ' The Corporation Plate and Insignia of Office of the Cities and Towns of England and Wales ' (1895). For Wells, p. Ixxxviii. ; Maiden- head, p. 24 ; Cardiff, p. 212 ; Bristol, p. 245 ; Andover, p. 266 ; and in vol. ii., Stamford p. 88 ; Norwich, p. 195 ; Great Yarmouth, p. 213 ; Oxford, p. 252 ; Wells, p. 299 ; Worthing, p. 281 ; Worcester (a belt), p. 438 ; York, p. 476 ; Hull, p. 535 ; Southampton,

E. 566. The use of most of these appears to e now discontinued.

S. A. GRUNDY-NEWMAN. Wallsall.