The version in Cole's Funniest Song Book,' p. 257, is the same except that the second line is :

He died long ago, long ago.

That the song is some seventy years old or more is evidenced by Delane's 'Journal,' quoted at the first reference.

What sort of bread or cake is or was a hoe-cake? ROBERT PIERPOINT.

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In an old volume of music I find this pathetic ballad, with a frontispiece portrait of the hero. It was published by the "Musical Bouquet,' 192 High Holborn. No date, but the book itself was bound up some time in the fifties of last century. The first verse runs :

I once knew a nigger, his name was Uncle Ned,
He died a long while ago,

He had no wool on the top of him head,
Just the place where the wool ought to grow
Chorus

Hang up the shovel and the hoe, the hoe,
Lay down his fiddle and his bow.

There's no more toil for poor old Ned,
He's gone where all good niggers go.

Torquay.

S. PONDER.

TULCHAN BISHOPS (12 Ș. viii. 52).Tulchan is a Gaelic term meaning "a little heap," then, a stuffed calf-skin placed under a cow's nose to induce her to give her milk, then, derisively, applied to the titular bishops in whose names the revenues of the Scottish sees were drawn by the lay barons, who thus had "ane tulchen lyk as the kow had or scho wald gif milk, ane calfis skin stoppit with stra" (Lindesay, ante 1578), quoted in 'N.E.D.' J. T. F. Winterton, Lines.

Nominal bishops, not consecrated or even in priest's orders, who held office in Scotland

Dar was an old nigger, and dey called him Uncle Ned at the time of the Reformation. So named But he's dead long, long ago.

He had no wool on de top of his head

On de place where de wool ought to grow.

Second verse :

Uncle Ned he was married when he was berry young
To a yaller girl dey call Lucy Lee,

She died in tree week, by an alligator's tongue,
On de banks ob de old Tenessee.

There are five verses.

as follows:

Den lay down de shubble and de hoe,
Hang up de fiddle and de bow,

as tulchan means a stuffed calf's skin set up
in sight of a cow to persuade her to give her
milk. See J. H. Blunt, Dictionary of Sects,
Heresies,' &c., 1874, p. 543, and note.
W. A. B. C.

Grindelwald.

In accordance with the Concordat at Chorus after each Leith (February, 1572) and the General Assembly at Perth (August, 1572) bishoprics were in the gift of lay lords who appointed to the bishopric those who would take the smallest stipend, while they themselves enjoyed the full emoluments of the see. These were called, in ridicule, "tulchan bishops." Tulchans is the Gaelic name for calf-skins filled with straw which were placed before cows to induce them to yield their milk more readily. C. G. N.

Dar's no more work for poor Uncle Ned,
He's gone where de good niggers go.
E. C. WIENHOLT.
7 Shooters Hill Road, Blackheath, S.E.3.

THE FIRST LORD WESTBURY (12 S.
viii. 51).-My old friend the late J. B.
Atlay in the section of his 'Victorian |
Chancellors' which treats of Lord Westbury
(Richard Bethell) in commenting on his
overbearing demeanour, writes as follows :—
"No one was immune, not the Court itself, nor
the solicitors who instructed him, least of all his
juniors. One of these, Charles Neate, Fellow of
Oriel, and in after years member for the City of
Oxford, was goaded beyond endurance- Shut up,
you fool!' are the words which are said by the
late Thomas Mozley to have been addressed to him
and retaliated in a fashion which all but lost him
his gown, and did compel his disappearance from

the other strongly against it, having as its behind her. The other players form a line facing leader Andrew Melville. As the rich livings the mother and, with hands joined, skip forward became vacant the Earl of Morton (after-the words how is she to-day?' The mother makes and backward (eight steps each way) and how at wards Regent) overcame men's scruples by the appropriate motions to indicate washing, ironing, appointing superintendents or sham bishops etc. Whenever the players say 'white' they all and some of the clergy were tempted to attempt to run away. The first one Jennia catches accept these so called bishoprics for a very takes her place and Jennia herself takes the part of the mother. Then the game is repeated." small endowment, the rest of the revenues being held by the greedy nobility. It is The first stanza and refrain are:- related that Earl Morton in talking to one We've come to see Miss Jennia Jones, Mr. John Douglas said: “Mr. John, listen; Miss Jennia Jones, Miss Jennia Jones, We've come to see Miss Jennia Jones, I shall get you raised to the archbishopric of And how is she to-day? (She's washing.) St. Andrews, a part of the revenue shall be yours the rest mine. You understand? We're right glad to hear it, To hear it, to hear it, and so the deed was done. Mr. John had the title and part of the revenue, but the bulk of it went to the Earl. The example thus set was soon followed. A crop of (Tulchan) Bishops soon sprang up. They got the droll name of Tulchans, a tulchan being a calf-skin stuffed full of straw set down before a cow that will not yield her milk. J. CLARE HUDSON.

Woodhall Spa.

Jo

66

A WAKE GAME (12 S. vii. 405).-Under a very slightly different name, the Jenny game was played twenty to forty years ago by children in the Carolinas and in Mississippi. People I have asked did not know of the game, however, in Texas or Wisconsin. I was much pleased to find a few months ago that it has been placed upon a phonograph record, along with similar song-games. "Miss Jennia Jones," slightly doctored, I think, from the form in which I knew it as a boy, is in the Third Bubble Book,' a printed book with records in pockets, prepared by the Columbia Graphophone Co., and published by Harper & Brothers. It is doubtless procurable in England as well as in America. And the tune is the same I was used to sing :

"One player acts the part of the mother and stands so as to hide the other player, Jennia Jones,

66

We're right glad to hear it,
And how is she to-day?

66

The second stanza repeats, changing the reply to "She's ironing"; and the third, to She's dead." Then the refrain changes glad" to 'sorry," and the query is "What shall we dress her in?" Blue is for sailors, and will never do; red is for firemen ; pink is for babies; but "White is for angels, so that of course will do."

For the last line of the refrain, we sang "We'll call another day "; and instead of being "right glad," we were very glad.' And we should not have known then what a 'wake" is, if we had been asked. R. H. GRIFFITH.

NOLA: CNOLLARE: PULSARE (12 S. vii. 502; viii. 37).—It may be interesting, in connexion with H. C.'s important article under this heading, to note that in the early accounts of Queen's College, Oxford (1340-1480) ncla is never used for a bell. Campana is the regular word, tintinnabulum being used twice, both times for a small bell, in the expenses of the chapel, pro factura tintinnabuli iiijd and pro tintinnabulo iiijd? In view of the suggestion that nola may be a clapper, it is to be observed that under tintinnabulum Maigne d'Arnis gives tintinnabulum campane, as tudicula, battant, i.e., hammer or clapper. JOHN R. MAGRATH.

Queen's College. Oxford.

CHARTULARIES (12 S. vii. 330, 414; viii. 56).--In a handbook drawn up for the use of contributors to the Victoria County History' will be found a list of chartularies county by county. The chartularies referring to Beaulieu are Cottonian MS. Nero A. XII.; Duke of Portland, 1832; Harl. MSS. 6602, 6603. In Sim's 'Manual for the Genealogist' there is also a list of chartularies. It therefore seems that "a bibliography of

existing monastic records "had already been
published. As, however, these lists in the
works referred to may not be accessible to
members of local archæological societies
I quite agree with MR. CRAWFORD that such
lists should be printed in the Journals of
these societies.

J. HAUTENVILLE COPE,
Editor Proceedings Hampshire Field Club.

Through the interest of his father, Sir Winston Churchill, he was appointed pageof-honour to the Duke of York, and at an early age he manifested a decided inclination for the profession of arms, which did not escape the notice of the Duke, for he received a Commission at the age of sixteen. This being so, it would appear that he did not go, as suggested, to a school in France. LEES KNOWLES, Bt.

Westwood, Pendlebury.

BOTTLE-SLIDER (12 S. vii. 471, 516; viii. 37, 53).-A somewhat similar contrivance to that noted by MR. BRADBURY existed in the In a Life of John, Duke of Marlborough, old Combination Room at Trinity Hall, "sold by John Baker in Pater Noster Row,. Cambridge, but if I remember rightly the 1713," which I happen to possess, the coasters were leathern and the table semi-anonymous biographer writes :circular in front of the fireplace. I have frequently admired the coasters (and the port) in undergraduate days when invited by Mr. Henry Latham (the beloved "Ben" of all Hall men) to go up after hall." Alas! the coasters must be nearly fifty years older. ARTHUR T. WINN.

Aldeburgh.

66

We had at the Royal Artillery Mess, Woolwich, small wagons of silver on wheels, each to take two bottles round the table after mess when the cloth was removed. This was forty years ago, but probably they are still in use. B. C.

"No care was omitted on the part of his tender parents for a liberal and gentle education, for he was no sooner out of the hands of the women but he was given into those of a sequestered clergyman. who made it his first concern to instil sound principles of religion into him, that the seeds of humane literature might take the deeper root, &c."

Lord Wolseley, in his Life of the Duke,. earmarks this divine as the Rev. R. Farrant, Rector of Musbury Parish, who tutored young Churchill for ten or twelve years. When his father went to Ireland in 1662 young John attended the Dublin City Free School, of which the Rev. Dr. W. Hill, Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, was Master. He was, however, only there about 1663, and John was sent to St. Paul's School, a year, for his father returned to London in of which Samuel Cromleholme was at that time head master. He remained there till 1665, when the school was closed owing to the Plague, and with it young Churchill's education appears to have terminated. I can find no allusion in any of the "histories OF to his having been educated in WILLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

My grandmother had silver coasters, date, Queen Anne. Inherited by me are some silver-rimmed ones, the coaster itself being made of light-coloured polished wood, date, early 1700. Also I have some in papier mâché (?) coloured red and polished. E. C. WIENHOLT.

7 Shooters Hill Road, Blackheath, S.E.3.

EDUCATION OF THE FIRST DUKE MARLBOROUGH (12 S. viii. 50). I have before me a copy of the Memoirs of the Duke of Marlborough' by William Coxe, in a new edition by John Wade, and dated 1847. In chap. i. it is stated:

"Of the education of a person afterwards so illustrious, we only know that he was brought up under the care of his father, who was himself a man of letters, and author of a political history of England, entitled 'Divi Britannici.' He was also instructed in the rudiments of knowledge by a neighbouring clergyman of great learning and piety. .....Soon after the Restoration, when his father was established at court, we find him in the metropolis, and placed in the school of St. Paul's. He did not. however, remain a sufficent time to reap the advantages afforded by this foundation, for he was removed to the theatre of active life, at a period when the ordinary course of liberal education is scarcely more than half completed."

France.

POOR RELIEF BADGE (12 S. viii. 48).The following appears in one of the Church-Reformation.' By the late Dr. B. Swete, S.P.C.K. wardens' Account Books at Aldeburgh, Monday, Feb. 23, 1773 :

This view is justified by the words of a much earlier authority, namely Caxton.

In his 'Liber Festivalis,' 1483-oddly enough the date of the statute of Richard III. above mentioned-wherein the festivals of the Church are explained in four sermons, it is said with reference to Palm Sunday: "We take ewe (sic) instead of palm and olyve, and beren about in processyon, and soe is thys day

called Palm Sunday.'

The last statute respecting the use of yew for bows is 13 Eliz. cap. 14 which directs that bow-staves shall be imported into England from the Continent, and fixes the price to be paid for them; e.g., bows meet for men's shooting, being outlandish yew of the best sort not over the price of 6s. 8d. ; of the second sort 3s. 4d.; of a coarser sort called livery bows 28.; and bows being English yew, 28.

In 1595 an Order in Council dated Oct. 2, directed that the bows of the train bands be exchanged for calivers and muskets. It is believed that the last active service of the war-bow was in the conflict between Charles II. and his Scottish subjects, bowmen forming part of the forces commanded by Montrose.

G. B. M. should refer to "The Yew-trees of Great Britain,' by the late Dr. John Lowe (Macmillan, 1897) in which he will find much to his purpose.

J. E. HARTING.

but a glance at the books mentioned above, and to the Indexes of N. & Q.' will supply your correspondent with more than sufficient material to keep him guessing for some considerable time. ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

There is a popular belief that such a I have never heard where it may be found. statute as that mentioned was passed, but (1) It seems unlikely that bows should be in great request as late as 1474 when gunpowder was displacing the old artillery. (2) Moreover, the yew tree seems a most unsuitable tree for the purpose of making (3) And as G. B. M. hints in his query, it is strange that trees should be grown for that purpose in churchyards.

bows.

In 1549 Tyndale's 'Prologues' to the Pentateuch were inserted in Matthew's Bible, and before Exodus notes were printed on certain terms found in the text. Among "Boothe

others is the definition of a

an house made of bowes

(Doré's 'Old Bibles,' p. 119). It is more likely that yew trees were grown in churchyards to provide the congregations with "bowes " to carry in the processions on Palm Sunday.

W. F. JOHN TIMBRELL. Coddington Rectory, Chester.

STATUES AND MEMORIALS IN THE BRITISH ISLES (12 S. viii. 25).—St. Paul's Cathedral— in front of steps, inscription:

Here Queen Victoria | returned thanks to | Alaccession | June 22, A.D. 1897. mighty God for the sixtieth anniversary of her

66

When this was first cut on the stone pavement the inscription ran sixtieth anniversary of her reign! I remember standing over it and reading with amazement. The alteration was of course quickly made. U. L.

G. B. M. should consult the elaborate chapter on all this in Johnson's 'Byways in British Archæology.' Reference is made to an order of 1483 for the general plantation of yews and another in Elizabeth's reign for plantation in churchyards, but the author had found no such statutes or authority. He considers the yew an ancient sacred emblem which in later times helped LIGHT AND DARK "A HEADPIECE (12 S. to supply the village quota of bow-staves. viii. 52). The light and dark "A" shewn R. S. B. in headpieces of books of the sixteenth and seventeenth century plainly refer to the Lowe in 'The Yew-trees of Great Britain cypher mentioned in and Ireland,' 1897, devotes a chapter to the (Gustavus Selenus, 1624), p. 17. They Cryptographiae why and wherefore of planting yew trees in indicate a method of secret writing in which churchyards, and quctes from Giraldus some letters of the secret message are Cambrensis (1184) and dozens of other changed, but not all, and in which each authorities. Various statutes are exhaus-letter may be itself or its twin, i.e., may be tively given in Hazlitt's 'Dictionary of Faiths and Folklore,' vol. ii., which were enacted for various purposes incidental to the subject. The consensus of opinion seems to be that originally these trees were planted in churchyards as an emblem of the resurrection owing to their perpetual verdure,

light (obvious) or dark (secret). This method is suggested also in Du Bartas'

Divine Weekes and Workes,' 1613, where a double circle (double O or cypher) is shewn with letters round it, part light, part dark Shakespeare's Sonnets are dedicated to “M. R. W. H.," and that arrangement to