Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/172

256 NOTES AND QUERIES. p* s. iv. tor. 23/99. from his mother, and that his sister Caroline displayed thesamequality. See'Encyclopaedia Bntannica,' xvii. 192. He also favoured the opinion that Nabulione was born in 1768, not 1769. Bourrienne's opinion to the contrary is discounted by the fact that he obtained it at a time when it might have suited his school- fellow to convey a wrong impression. In fairness to Madame Letitia the imputation should have been made with evidence of Mar- beuf's character, not without it. Arthur Mayall. Major William Gordon, of the Queen's Bays (9th S. iv. 188).—I observe that Mr. Bulloch states that Major Gordon was found guilty of the manslaughterof George Gregory. Thelate Dr. C.T.Richardson,in his'Fragments of History pertaining to the Vill of Ramsgate' (1885), p. 60, puts the case, rather differently. It must be premised that the cavalry barracks were then situated at the back of Nelson Cres- cent, and that the " Duke of York" public- house inAddington Street was the old canteen. Dr. Richardson says :— "A troop of horse were proceeding from their barracks, and, when opposite the canteen, the officer in charge put the point of his sword to the back of one of the troopers, whose horse at the moment making a sudden rearward movement, the sword entered the poor man's chest from the back, and he died shortly after from the wound. The officer was tried at Maidstone and acquitted." My impression is that Dr. Richardson de- rived his information from local tradition, and that Mr. Bulloch's more circumstantial account is likely to be correct. Perhaps he will kindly give his authority. W. F. Prideaux. Ramsgato. The Devil's Door (9th S. iv. 127, 178, 218). — Allow me to express my doubt of this superstitious explanation. In Essex the quite normal type of country church has two deep porches, one north and one south. It is difficult to assert positively that these churches are not pre-Norman. Their material is still largely wood, and high up in the stonework remain very narrow windows with round heads and with no trace of ornament. This arrangement of the porches is, both from the side of ritual and of hygiene, specially suitable for funerals, the coffin being brought in at one porch, set between them in a draft of air, and carried out for burial at the other. It seems absurd that any one should call the north door the devil's door. Rather one might call it the gate of Hades, the janua mortis or the janua xiUe, as one's faith were weak or strong. As to a superstitious dread of the north side of a churchyard, I would suggest that there were good reasons for preferring the sunny side for burials. Memorials last longer on that side; thus the north side would remain vacant, not for any superstitious reason, but for a reason partly sentimental and partly rational. It is very difficult in a damp climate to keep an engraved tomb- stone clear of moss near to the north side of a tall church. Is it not on record that, in some early and dark times of the Church, the adult cate- chumen turned to the west (not to the north) to pronounce the renunciation of the devil and all his works ? T. Wilson. Harpenden. Trade=Road (9th S. iv. 186).—There is surely an error at this reference, if it is meant to imply that the use of " trade" to mean " road arises from the use of roads for ; trade or business. This trade—or, as I would prefer to write it, "treyd"—is the old pronunciation of " tread." It is applied to a narrow footpath rather than to a road, and originally (whatever may be the case now) was used only for paths across meadows, commons, marshes, and moorlands, where no cart-road or fence existed, and where the tread itself was the only guide to the right direction. In many parts of the country " tread," and in other parts " trod," is used in this sense ; and I have of ten heard a farmer in the North directing people to "keep to t' trod " through his fields. H. Snowden Ward. I observe your correspondent gives the vicar of Westnara, Mr. Hopley, the credit of this contribution to the Sussex dialect; but it is quite an old-fashioned Sussex word, in common use long years ago. William Durrant Cooper, in his ' Glossary of Sussex Provincial- isms,' 1836, gives " Trade, a road-East Sussex"; William Holloway, in his 'Dictionary of Provincialisms,' 1838, " Trade, S. {trado, Lat., to imprint), a rut, a wheel-trade"; the Rev. W. I). Parish, in ' Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect,' " Trades (treads), the ruts in a road. ' You will never get your carriage doun that laine, for it can't take the trades,'" i.e., it cannot run in the ruts. Jas. B. Morris. Fernhurst, Uckfield. Probably a dialectal form of " trod," i.e., via trita (8th S. xii. 444; 9th S. i. 54, 274). W. C. B. "Yapp" (9th S. iv. 169).—This word was first used by Bagster, the well-known Bible publisher, and has crept into every Bible catalogue and into lists of fine bindings of