286
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vn. APRIL is, 1901.
sign of the "Golden Harp and Hautboy." and
where Handel's principal works were pub-
lished. The premises were used as a theatre
about 1842 ; and I am inclined to think that
the front was cemented at that time, and the
decoration in the tympanum of the second-
floor windows, emblematic of the drama,
introduced, which has been mistaken for
Walsh's sign the " Golden Harp," which has
long since disappeared. JOHN HEBB.
" WHOM "= HOME. The change of h into wh in several of our English dialects has often been noted in these columns. An amusing instance comes to me from Moira, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Moira is the centre of a colliery district, and is familiarly known by the pitmen and their families as "Wh5m." The story goes that a young woman found crying on the platform of Ashby station explained that she had missed her train because the ticket-clerk, who was fresh to the place, did not know where " Whtfm " was.
C. C. B.
THE 42ND AT FONTENOY. When the 42nd were retiring before the assault of the Irish Brigade at Fontenoy, a sergeant, seeing how necessary it was that it should keep its ranks if it was not to be annihilated, is reported to have said, " Front and rear, keep thegither." GEOFFREY HILL.
WEST -COUNTRYMEN'S TAILS. The blue- jackets of H.M. ships commissioned on the east coast affect to consider the West-Country men inferior to themselves, and say they have tails. In March the ship's company of H.M.S. Rodney turned over bodily, when that ship paid off, to H.M.S. Anson, then at Plymouth. The train from Chatham dock- yard was run west "in commission" the carriages nearest the engine answering to fo'c's'le, others nearer the centre to berths for men of higher rank, officers (in uniform) in middle saloon, and marines behind. The engine flew the " jack" ; the captain's pennant was 'midships, and the white ensign astern. When the train got into Devonshire the bluejackets had their heads out at once, chaffing the people at the stations and asking about their tails. IBAGUE.
[The charge that Englishmen, and especially men of Kent, have tails has been brought in France and Scotland. See 8 th S. x. 148, 'Caudatus Anglicus.']
INFLUENZA. It is very well known that the influenza is not an exclusively modern complaint, but I am not sure whether a curious reference to it by Bower, the cori- tinuator of Fordun's chronicle, has been noted. Writing of the year 1420, he says
that among those who died in Scotland that
year were Sir Henry St. Clair, Earl of Ork-
ney ; Sir James Douglas, of Dalkeith ; Sir
William de Abernethy, Sir William de St.
Clair, Sir William Cockburn, and many
others, all by "that infirmity whereby not
only great men, but innumerable quantity of
the commonalty perished, which was vulgarly
termed le Quhew [le Quhew a vulgaribus
dicebatur]" (Bower, xv. 32). Now quh in
Scottish texts usually represents the sound
of wh (properly aspirated) ; therefore it seems
that in the fifteenth century the influenza
was known as "the Whew," just as it is
known in the twentieth century as " the
Flue." I have refrained from quoting at
length Bower's explanation of the cause of
the epidemic, but there seems little doubt
that the disease was identical with that with
which we are so grievously familiar.
HERBERT MAXWELL.
[For other references to influenza see 6 th S. viii. 407, 478 ; ix. 55 ; 7 th S. ix. 68, 132, 184, 267 ; x. 332, 376 ; xi. 446 ; xii. 51 ; 8 th S. i. 126, 194, 356 ; ii. 44 ; vii. 46.]
GERM OF A MODERN CENTAUR-MYTH. I do not know if many readers of *N. & Q.' are interested in such " old wives' fables," but I cut the following from the Peterburgskii Listok (Petersburg Leaflet) of 11 (24) February, which borrows it from the Youg (South) newspaper :
" At Lysaya Gora village, Elisavetgrad district (Kherson government), a peasant woman, Agra- fena K , has been brought to bed of a strange monster : it is of the female sex, and its eyes and one of its ears are human, but the face and the other ear are those of a horse. The arms are behind instead of before, and legs, face, and ears are hairy. This abortion is reported to have lived seven days."
Of course, no importance is to be attributed to this fantastical description of a miscarriage such as can be seen in any anatomical museum, but the imaginative paragraphist seems almost to hint at some such unnatural combination as is described in the tenth book of Appuleius's ' Golden Ass,' although one is much less tempted to believe in his suggestion of a horse father than in his discovery of a mare's nest. H. E. M.
St. Petersburg.
TITHE.
" Tithe was originally a rent charge paid to monasteries or churches by those who farmed their lands." ' Alfred, the West Saxon King of the English,' by Dugald Macfadyen, M.A., sometime Exhibitioner in Modern History on the foundation of Merton College, Oxford, 1901, p. 5 (footnote). Mr. Macfadyen does not cite any authority for his statement. Surely, when tithe was paid to a church, this did not mean that the land belonged to the church ; or, when
