ii. DEC. 17, '98.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
at the assertion that this word is intelligibl
It is also remarkable that the possessor o
such knowledge should write as follows (ant
p. 185) :
"Both forms ['helpmate' and 'helpmeet'] ar given by Webster, and also by Nuttall, and a the use of neither form can be defended on anj other ground than that the dictionaries sanction it Miss Corelli may perhaps be allowed to choos whichever she prefers. It, as I suppose, this word however spelt, is traceable to a mistaken appre hension of Gen. ii. 18 ' An help meet for him ' the form Miss Corelli actually does choose is probablj the older of the two, and I do not see that it i much improved by being changed into ' helpmate.' '
Comment on this is superfluous ; but one may be allowed the suggestion that, in future a reference to the practice of even one greai author will outweigh the enumeration o1 many lexicographers. THOMAS BAYNE.
Helensburgh, N.B.
MILL BAY PRISON (9 th S. ii. 308, 437). I cannot say when the barracks at Mill Bay, Plymouth, were erected, but probably in the middle of the eighteenth century. At one time these barracks were known as the French prisons, large numbers of American and French prisoners having been confined there before the completion of the Prince Town prisons. They were then again occupied by soldiers, who during the Crimean War had to vacate them to make room for Russian
Erisoners, who were brought to Plymouth in irge numbers. After the peace they were again used, and still continue to be used, as military barracks. J. B. R.
" DEVELOPEMENT " (9 th S. ii. 427). The Man- chester Courier uses this form, not only in its original matter, but throughout. While one admires thoroughness, one cannot help think- ing that persistency might find a more useful outlet than in the daily alteration as, for instance, in the telegrams of an accepted and almost universal orthography.
ARTHUR MAYALL.
If MR. BAYNE will examine the Edinburgh Eeview further, he will find many more in- stances of the word so spelt, but not one of its being spelt develojmient. Mr. Reeve, who edited the Review for a time long enough to put his mark on many of its details, was, in the matter of spelling, a strict conservative, and always wrote development and judgement. Personally, I think he was right, with regard to the last word more especially. In any case, he may be called " an authority." J. K. LAUGHTON.
WILLIAM BARRON (9 th S. ii. 388). This name does not appear in Mr. Octavius Morgan's
' List of Members of the Clockmakers' Com-
pany from 1631 (the period of their incorpora-
tion) to 1732 '; Wood's ' Curiosities of Clocks
and Watches from the Earliest Times,' Lon-
don, 1866 ; the ' Catalogue of the Library and
Museum of the Clockmakers' Company '; or
in any one of the ninety-seven volumes of
' N. & Q.' A William Barrow was elected a
member of the Company in 1709. Has your
correspondent mistaken the final letter ?
EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.
I presume the clock referred to under this heading was made by William Barrow (not Barren), who was admitted a member of the Clockmakers' Company in 1709.
T. SEYMOUR.
9, Newton Road, Oxford.
" PIG-A-BACK " (9 th S. ii. 429). I do not think this form is uncommon. It is an excellent example of phonetic law. A voiceless k between two vowels is very liable to be voiced to g ; see my ' Principles of Eng. Etym.,' i. 384. Other examples are seen in flagon^ from O.F. flacon ; dragon, from L. draconem ; stagger^ from M.E. stakeren ; trigger, formerly spelt tricker. WALTER W. SKEAT.
In my younger days in Derbyshire this was always " pick-a-back." " Give 's a pick- a-back "="pick me up on your back," and was a very common amusement amongst aoys, when they broke out of school with whoops and yells on half-holiday occasions, or at other times when spirits ran too high for repression. In several games in which one side pursued the other the captors rode lome to goal on their prisoners, " pick-a- >ack." A favourite mode of minding baby ind keeping him amused was for the girl or )oy nurse to gallop him about " pick-a-back," and so forth. Hereabout the similar word s "pag," though I do not know it in the
- ense of " pick-a-back." " To pag "=to carry
on the back. Maltsters' men " pag " the sacks f malt on their backs, and lads are often required by their mothers to "pag t' babby "= "ive it a ride "pick-a-back."
THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.
It was always " pig-a-back " when I was a hild in North London in the forties.
HARRY HEMS. Fair Park, Exeter.
ARMS WANTED (9 th :S. ii. 187, 437). At this ast reference the arms of Fox of Chacombe re given as a chevron erminois between three ons' heads ; but on the early seventeenth- entury tomb about which I am, concerned
