132
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. AUG. 15, 1903.
pitiate the domestic gods ; (4) the liturgical
rites practised in certain religious orders of
women, on conferring the black veil and
making the final vows. It was a ceremony
of the last-named kind, evidently, that was
witnessed by the "two English gentlemen
and a lady" in a Spanish church in 1876. Such
a function is highly picturesque, and answers
its object of impressing upon the nun and
her friends the complete severance of her
life from that of " the world. The novice
lies prone on the floor of the chancel and is
covered with a pall, while the bell tolls as
though for a funeral. After a few moments
she rises a professed nun, dead to the world
and consecrated to God and His service. The
perversion of this into a brutal murder needed
all the combined ignorance and ingenuity of
which some people are capable. By-the-by,
how thoughtful of the bishop and convent
to invite three English tourists to witness
their nefarious deed and report it to Temple
Ear in " a striking story," published twenty-
seven years later !
JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS. Monmouth.
This ridiculous myth seems to die hard. The matter is discussed in two learned pamphlets by the Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J., published by the Catholic Truth Society, the first of which, 'The Immuring of Nuns,' deals specifically with the Coldingham legend. It was published in 1892, and is supplemented by 'The Myth of the Walled -up Nun,' pub- lished in 1895. As to the mummified man at Arezzo (8 th S. v. 233), Fr. Thurston remarks in the latter pamphlet, p. 21 :
With regard to this, I will content myself with remarking that one would hardly expect immured monks to be exposed for inspection in a cathedral, while, on the other hand, there are well-known in- stances of desiccated bodies being left open to view in that way -the corpse (valuta) of Kttore or Astore Visconti, who was killed in a duel in 1413, still standing upright in the churchyard wall beside the Cathedral of Monza, is a case in point.
For the burial of persons in church walls see I" 1 S. ii. 513 ; iii. 37, 156 ; 2'" 1 S. ix. 425 x. 16; and for upright burial 4 th S. v 249 349 ; 9 th S. xi. 465, 514 ; xii. 34.
An opinion is scarcely well founded the sole ground for which is "a striking story" in Temple Bar. JOHN P.. WAINEWRIGHT.
There can, in my opinion, bo no doubt that the stories about immuring nuns are folk-lore or conscious fiction. I devoted a long time to the investigation of this subject some years ago. The result was an article on the subject in the Dutjlin Review for January, 1889, and another in the Journal of the Royal Archreo-
logical Institute for March, 1894. The Kev.
Herbert Thurston, S.J., has also written two
pamphlets on the subject, which have been
issued by the Catholic Truth Society.
So far as I have been able to ascertain, the late Ven. Edward Churton, Archdeacon of Cleveland, was the first person of authority to call in question this belief. In a paper read by him many years ago before the York- shire Architectural Society he expressed his disbelief in these stories in strong terms. He was, as many of the readers of *N. & Q.' will call to mind, one of the most learned eccle- siastical antiquaries of his day.
I have not seen the article in Temple Ear which MR. ASTLEY mentions, and do not gather from him whether what is there written is intended to be received as romance or as fact. If the latter, I would remind those whom it may concern that though the Spaniards may be backward in some respects, they have laws punishing murder.
EDWARD PEACOCK.
Wickentree House, Kirton-in-Lindsey.
RAILWAY LITERATURE (9 th S. xii. 28).
"As to those persons who speculate on making railways general throughout the kingdom, and superseding all the canals, all the waggons, mail and stage coaches, post-chaises, and, in short, every other mode of conveyance by land and by water, we deem them and their visionary schemes
unworthy of notice In a similar strain we
find a countryman of Mr. Telford writing thus: ' We shall be carried at the rate of 400 miles a day, with all the ease we now enjoy in a steam- boat, but without the annoyance of sea-sickness, or the danger of being burned or drowned.' It is certainly some consolation to those who are to be whirled at the rate of eighteen or twenty miles an hour, by means of a high pressure engine, to be told that they are in no danger of being sea-sick while on shore ; that they are not to be scalded to death nor drowned by the bursting of the boiler ; and that they need not mind being shot by the scattered fragments, or dashed in pieces by the flying off, or the breaking of a wheel. But with all these assur- ances, we should as soon expect the people of Wool- wich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine, going at such a rate ; their property, perhaps, they may trust ; but while one of the finest navigable rivers 'in the world runs parallel to the proposed railroad, we consider the other 20 per cent, which the subscribers are to receive for the conveyance of heavy goods almost as problematical as that to be derived from the Passengers ; we will back old father Thames against the Woolwich railway for any sum." Quarterly /.Vrjr,/-, March, 1825, xxxi. 361, 362.
It is curious to contrast with the above the tact that during the last few years steam- boats up and down the river Thames have ceased running, even the summer excursion trattic, except to the seaside, having failed to
