9-S.VL OCT. e.1900.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 273 propriated to interments of paupers (nowa days they would be called Sons ot the State much as pauper children in Board School are styled Children of the State) who diec in the workhouse. As in other cases, e.g., th still standing workhouse (now the infirmar; of the Strand Union) of St. Paul's, Coven Garden, Cleveland Street, Fitzroy Square, burial-ground was attached to St. Martin Workhouse. This had nothing in common with the burial - ground pertaining to St Martin's Church, which is now paved over and used as a playground. Here, or in the vaults under the church, it was, no doubt that George Heriot was interred, and close to Paul van Somer, Sir T. Mayerne, William Dobson, Nell Gwynne, Jack Shepherd Hon. R. Boyle, Roubiliac, John Hunter C. Bannister, and scores more of note. F. Q. S. HOUSES WITHOUT STAIRCASES (9th S. i. 166, 210, 356, 418; ii. 89; iii. 116; iv. 65).—The following paragraph is taken from Cassell's 'Old and New London,' the title-page of which is without date:— " The present [St. Pancrau] Vestry Hall wag erected in 1847. The architect was Mr. Bond, the then surveyor of the pariah, and Mr. Cooper the builder. Mr. Palmer, in his work already referred to, mentions a tradition that the architect, in making the plans for the building, omitted the stairs by which the first floor was to be reached, and that he afterwards made up the defect by placing the present ugly steps outside."—' Old and New London,' v. 329. This statement is incorrect so far as relates to the present Vestry Hall, which was erected in 1874-5, as is recorded on the foundation stone on the face of the building—H. H. Brulgraan architect, Willson Bros, builders. The work by Mr. Palmer referred to in the extract is presumably Samuel Palmer's ' His- tory of St. Pancras,' published in 1870 : but on turning to that work I failed to find any allusion to the omission of the staircase, and I am inclined to believe that this portion of the paragraph is as untrustworthy as that relating to the date and authorship of the building. From inquiry I find that the staircase of the old Vestry Hall projected in advance of the main building, which had a forecourt in front; but this is common enough, and affords no sufficient grounds for supposing that the architect forgot the staircase. JOHN HEBB. COUNTING ANOTHER'S BUTTONS (9th S. v. 496 ; vi. 30).—Button counting was a common pastime among the schoolboys of North-East Aberdeenshire half a century ago, and I have no doubt is such still. We had two forms. In counting the buttons, beginning at the bottom, we, according to one formula, repeated the words "Bought, borrowed, paid, stolen," the word used at the last button being supposed to indicate the manner in which the garment had been obtained. The second formula had reference to character, and ran thus : "A laird, a lord, a cooper, a caird, a hangman, a thief. ALEXANDER PATEHSON, F.J.I. Barnsley. This species of schoolboy coscinoraancy seems to have been practised to ascertain a new boy's destiny, penchant, or social proba- bilities, and, like divination by the sieve, resembled the custom, still prevalent, of con- sulting the Bible, not only by means of the " Bible and key," but also by the more simple method of opening the sacred book at random, and by placing the finger random- wise upon a passage which must be accepted as the oracular response. This was no doubt the Christian substitution for the Sortes Vir- gilianas when the answer was elicited from
- he pages of the ' ./Eneid.' It has been over-
linked that Shakespeare alludes to the custom of rating one by his buttons (' Merry Wives.' III. ii.), " 'Tis in his buttons ; he will carry V i.e., it is his destiny. So that to say of one that "he has (or is) a button short" is to mply that the Fates have not been too kind » nim in point of mental efficiency. Another limilar phrase is "to make buttons," i.e., to >e apprehensive of the future, of one's destiny, to foresee, to have misgivings :— Sancho. 0 Soto, I make buttons. 1653, Middleton, ' Spanish Gipsy,' IV. iii. J. HOLDBN MAcMlCHAEL. Wimbledon Park Road. When I was a boy at school in this town a ihallenge to a schoolfellow was given, not by ounting his buttons, but by rubbing them. R. B-R. South Shields. "HANSEL" (9th S. v. 393).—The 'H.E.D.' toes no doubt deal as fully as is necessary with this word, but more may be said to show he way in which it is used. The_van and /ent dwellers whom we call gipsies, who nake and peddle clothes-pegs, brooms of real broom," green twig baskets for ferns, toy .mbrellas and fancy pipes of green rushes— fie materials gathered off their campgrounds, lie country lanes with wide margins of grass ncl bramble-bush—use the word more, per- aps, than any other class. These have modes of dealing of their own, and wheedle ou into buying almost before you know it
