12 s. in. SEPT., 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
husband's right of correction, if it ever
existed, must now be regarded as obsolete.
As Mr. Justice Lush remarks (' A Century
of Law Reform,' 347), the case establishes
" the inalienable right of a wife not to be
beaten by her husband."
LEONARD J. HODSON.
There are many contemporary allusions to Mr. Justice Buller and his decision that a man might lawfully beat his wife with a stick, if it were not thicker than his thumb. Gillray portrays him carrying a bundle of sticks, and in the distance is a man beating his wife. The number of the caricature is 13 ; the date is Xov. 27, 1782 ; .and the legend is, " Judge Thumb, or, Patent Sticks for Family Correction : warranted LawfuL! "
The same judge presided at the trial of Major Topham for libel on the third Earl Cowper after the death of the Earl. A verdict of guilty was obtained, but was overruled by the Court of King's Bench in 1791. J. J. FREEMAN.
Shepperton, S.O.
This reference is explained in ' The Lives of Twelve Eminent Judges,' by William C. Townsend, 1846, at p. 19.
Buller was born in 1746 ; married, c. 1763 (at the age of 17), Susannah, daughter and heiress of Francis Yarde, Esq., of Churston Ferrers and Ottery St. Mary ; was raised to the Bench in 1778 (aged 32) ; and made the remark in question in 1782 (aged 36). See also ' The Works of James Gillray, the Caricaturist,' at p. 43. " M.
JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS (12 S. iii. 360). John Hamilton Reynolds lived for some years in Newport, Isle of Wight, coming there in 1847 as assistant clerk of the newly established County Court. In earlier years he was on terms of the closest friendship with Keats, and many of the poet's most interesting letters are addressed to " My dear Reynolds." He died at Newport on Nov. 15, 18.52, at the age of 58, and was interred in the old burial-ground at Church Litten.
The inscription on the headstone was recent ly restored, it having become scarcely legible. An addition was then made to the original inscription in the form of a line reminding all who pass by that he whose mortal remains are resting there was " the friend of Keats."
So far as I can ascertain, there are no descendants of John Hamilton Reynolds living in the Isle of Wight. J. L.' W.
Vent nor.
'SOCIETY IN LONDON' (12 S. iii. 360).
Surely the author is Mr. T. H. S. Escott ?
G. R.
[We have Mr. Escott's authority for saying that he is not the writer of the volume, though it is often attributed to him.]
EARLY NONCONFORMITY IN DEVON ANT> CORNWALL (12 S. iii. 273, 337). I have only just noticed the inquiry in reference to the- records of the Devon and Cornwall Associa- tion which appeared at the former reference- MR. HUMPHREYS in his reply has given a useful summary of the Western Baptist Associations, but the Association to which DTJNHEVED refers is evidently the ministerial association represented to-day by the Exeter Assembly. The documents of this association (with the exception of two volumes in Dr. Williams's Library) are for the time being in my custody as " Scribe " to the Assembly. Our earliest minutes,, dating from 1655, are accessible in print,, having been edited, in 1877, by Mr. R. N. Worth, a member of the Plymouth Uni- tarian Congregation, for the Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art. The title of his article is ' Puritanism, in Devon and the Exeter Assembly.' Im- perfect records of a similar ministerial association for part of Cornwall are extant, and are preserved in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. These Cornish minutes are also accessible in print, and run from September, 1655, to early ia 1659. The Devon Association of Ministers has been known by various titles in the course of its long history. At its revival in 1691 it was called " The United Brethren of the City of Exon and County of Devon," or, in shorter form, " The United Brethren of Exon and Devon." The ministers of Cornwall were invited to join in 1693, and then the title became " The United Brethren of Devon and Cornwall." Tor many years the society, according to ' The Unitarian Pocket Almanac,' was known as " The West of England Presbyterian Divines," and it i> now known as the " Exeter Assembly." A copy of the minutes from 1691 to 1717 is in Dr. Williams's Library, Gordon Square, London. In the same library is another volume of the Assembly's minutes from 1723 to 1728, which came into the hands of Mr. George Eyre Evans in 1888. These were the minutes consulted by the Rev. J. Hay Colligan in compiling his book en ' Eighteenth -Century Nonconformity.' An account of this Association or " Assembly," dedicated to the late Dr. James MarUneau,.
