394 NOTES AND QUERIES. "AMTMANN" (12 S. viii. 350). The pre- cise meaning of this term has varied at different times and in different places. Formerly it denoted the manager of a crown domain, who combined agricultural and judicial functions. Later, when these were separated, the title of " Amtmann " or " Oberamtmann " was applied in some parts, especially in Prussia, to the official who was responsible for the cultivation of the crown land ; in other parts it was only given to the man who received the rents or administered justice. Professor Breul's German Dictionary gives the appropriate equivalents of " magis- trate ; bailiff ; domain judge, steward." In the Stanford Dictionary, the anglicized " amtman " or " amptman " (earliest quota- tion 1587) is defined by " a district magis- trate, a domain judge, a civil officer in charge of a district or amt, a steward, bailiff." Readers of Carlyle's ' Frederick the Great ' will remember Oberamtmann Fromme riding swiftly at the left wheel of Fiiedrich's carriage, and loudly answering questions of his, all day, when the King inspects the crown lands in the district of the Rhyn-Zuch. Carlyle describes Fromme as " Head-Manager " and "a kind of Royal Land-Bailiff." We get the same word in the Swiss " Landam- man " or district magistrate, an example of which is Arnold Biederman in ' Anne of Geierstein.' It is worth noting that the Gifhorn of MR. DEW'S query is familiarly connected with a Scottish worthy, the soldier of for- tune Andrew Melville (1624-1706), at one time commandant of that town, an English translation of whose Memoirs was published in 1918. EDWARD BENSLY. THACKERAY: 'THE NEWCOMES ' (12 S. viii. 31). No explanation having been offered of the substitution of " Downy " for "Gibber Wright" in vol. i., chap, ix., I suggest that Thackeray changed the name on recollecting that he had introduced a similar but less obvious piece of punning nomenclature in ' Pendennis,' where he described the " chambers on the second floor in Pen's staircase," tenanted by
- ' that young buck and flower of Baker
Street, Percy Sibwright." EDWARD BENSLY. BOOK BORROWERS (12 S. viii. 208, 253, 278, 296, 314, 334, 350, 377). I have seen, in an I old lesson-book used by my father at Rugby
- school in the early 'forties, the following
inscription : Si, tente du demon, Tu derobes ce livre, Apprends que tout fripon Est indigne de yivre ; Si tu veux savoir mon nom, Regarde dans le petit rond. And here follows the owner's name, in a little circle. KATHLEEN A. N. WARD. Bishop Warburton's cook is said at the last reference to have " played havoc
- with the greatest treasures in his library."
I 1 have lately seen a like statement else- where, and possibly the incident may be in gradual process of transference from a less to a better known bearer of the name. The victim was not William, Bishop of Gloucester and editor of Shakespeare, but John Warburton (1682-1759), Somerset Herald. The record of his loss, entered in one of the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum under a list of plays, is given thus by Blades, ' The Enemies of | Books,' chap. v. : " After I had been many years collecting these Manuscript Playes, through my own | carelessness and the ignorance of my ser- vant, they were unluckely burned or put under pye bottoms." EDWARD BENSLY. It is quite likely that whoever wrote the lines in my old dictionary, from which I quoted, may have concluded his warning after the style given by MR. WEEKS. But it is impossible to decipher the words obliterated. Personally I prefer the school- boy's substitution, though rhymeless, to threats which border upon the profane. CECIL CLARKE. Junior Athenaeum Club. " GEEN " WHISKY (12 S. viii. 350).- Doubtless a liquor similar to sloe gin or cherry brandy. J. T. F. Winterton, Lines. This is no doubt whisky flavoured by bird-cherries, sometimes called geens, the fruit of Prunus avium. Sloe gin is another luxury of the same class, and is indebted to Prunus spinosa. ST. SWITHIN. Wild cherry is known as " gene "' in Berk- shire possibly derived from foreign monks, as it is local French. E. E. C.
