special mention of a certain Mr. "G."?) is worthy of every commendation.

The tomfooleries here below were perpetrated by a Frenchman, Charles Malo, in his Correspondence inédite et secrète de Docteur B. Franklin, and are lifted bodily out of Bigelow's Autobiography of Franklin.

In one of his letters Franklin remarks: "They thought a Yankee was a sort of Yahoo." Upon this M. Malo remarks:

"Yahoo. - This must be an animal. They pretend it is an opossum, but I have not found the word 'Yahoo' in any dictionary of natural history."

Again, in a letter to Buffon, Franklin wrote that he had escaped obesity by eating moderately, drinking neither wine nor cider and in exercising himself daily with dumbbells. M. Malo instructs his countrymen that "this term dumb-bells expresses among the English the motion a person seated makes in moving back and forth only the upper party of his body."

In one instance, M. Malo presumed to act as a censor upon Dr. Franklin himself. In a letter of the doctor's he had quoted with a sort of humorous approval the following lines from an old song :

"With a courage undaunted may I face my last day, And when I am gone may the better sort say,

In the morning when sober, in the evening when mellow :

He is gone and has not left behind him his fellow; For he governed his passions.''

M. Malo remarks upon this couplet : "I have not translated the third line literally, for it did not seem to me in very good taste to desire to be praised by honest people, who are sober in the morning and drunk in the evening," so he translated the passage as follows:

"Puissé-je avec courage voir arriver mon dernier jour; et quand je ne serai plus, puissent les gens vertueux répéter souvent, 'il est mort, et n'a pas laissé son pareil au monde! Car il avait sur ses passions un ALES. pouvoir absolu.'"'

TITHINGMEN.

In A. M. Earle's interesting book on "The Sabbath in Puritan New England," there is a very amusing account of the an. cient office of the tithingmen in Massachu

setts. I remember that in 1854 my father was elected a tithingman in the (then very young) city of Springfield, Mass. He was chosen at a city election, but he was not a member of "the standing order" (as the Congregationalists used to be called) and his election amused us, his children, very much. I never knew that his office brought him any new duties or responsibilities, and I am very sure it brought no emoluments. If my memory serves, the last relics of the actual connection between State and church did not cease to be operative in Massachusetts until the year 1838. The election of tithingmen after that date was probably a meaningless local survival.

COSMOS.

S. X. K.

I picked up this day a late number of the Philadelphia Record, in which it is. stated that the plant called Cosmos is an artificial creation, recently evolved, or words to that effect, but in Henderson's "Handbook of Plants," p. 57, edition of 1881, it it said (correctly, as I believe) that Cosmos is a genus of Mexican plant, introduced into culture in 1799. Of course, like most ornamental plants, the Cosmos has been improved or modified in some respects by culture. The ordinary newspaper paragrapher is not always as reliable as he may prove interesting.

CAMDEN, N. J.

B. S. H.

DEATH CUSTOM IN PORTUGAL. From the ensuing quotation, taken from Branco's "A Neta do Archediago," it would seem that a blazing wood fire was kept burning alongside the bodies of those

who had met a violent or murderous death in Portugal. Describing an assault on an isolated Portuguese château by highwaymen and the death of one of the bandits in their repulse, the author says:

"Ao passarem pelo quinteiro, onde estava o cadaver, com a fogueira do costume ao lado," etc., i. e., "In passing by the steward where the dead body lay with the customary log fire at its side."

Jewery. Where is or was the Land of Jewery, mentioned by Peter De Loire, in his "Treatise on Spectres, Strange Sights, Visions and Apparitions," printed at London in 1605? J. W. W.

KNOXVILLE, IA.

The Oldest Inhabited Dwelling House in this Country. I am informed by the daily papers that the oldest inhabited dwelling house in the United States is that of Killian Van Rensselaer, opposite Albany. It is of brick with a gambrel roof. The front wall contains two port-holes, out of which the early inhabitants used to shoot at the Indians. According to a plate in the rear, set up by the Albany Commemorative Society, the building was erected in 1642. The Dutch reformed settlers held religious services in the old hall. There is a well behind the house, which legend names as the place where "Yankee Doodle" was composed during the French and Indian war.

Is this quite correct?

Jos. E.

Unlucky Names (Vol. vii, p. 119).—Miss Yonge seems to have gone too far afield in her search for the reason of the disrepute attaching to the name John that led to his change of name when Robert III came to the throne of Scotland. Burton says, much more credibly, that it was John Baliol, the only "King John" in Scottish history,

who had made the name hateful to Scotchmen, because his subserviency to Edward I gave him the odium of selling the national independence. M. C. L.

NEW YORK CITY.

What Familiar Proverb is This? (Vol. viii, p. 3).—The proverb alluded to is, evidently, "A fool and his money are soon parted."

ELMA. [Same reply received with thanks from E. P.]

There Are No Witches (Vol. vii, p. 316). -I happen to be in a position to quote you a verbatim reply to the above, if it has not been answered by the time this reaches you.

I extract it from Theresa Pulszky's "Memoirs of a Hungarian Lady." On p. 35, she says:

"But most extraordinary is Koloman's

penal legislation. *** He limited the ordalia, the verdict found by means of redhot iron and boiling water, which was so frequent in the time of Ladislas. He decreed (in the eleventh century) that no information should be received against witches, because there are no witches! Mutilation, which is a conspicuous feature in the penal code of Ladislas, is by Koloman commuted into fines and other punishments, and in the case of infanticide, he decrees that the the wretched mother is to be left to the penance of the church, and to the pangs of her own conscience." A FAR-OFF FRIEND.

DENVER, COLO.

Hope in English River Names (Vol. vii, p. 233)-Hope is a good old British localism. for a hill, and if J. H. Layman (who seems to have scanned the map of England to some purpose) will reexamine his map I think he will find that in every instance which he names, the stream starts from an individual or clearly marked hill or mountain. The syllable hope, in my view, is originally a part of a hill name. Rookhope Brook is thus simply rook-hill brook, or the brook from Rook-hill. The river Killhope flows from the vicinity of a high peak called Killhope Law. Bollihope is likewise the name of a hill as well as a stream, and similarly the other streams named are associated with like-named hills. QUIDAM.

PENNSYLVANIA.

Pocosin or Pocoxin (Vol. vii, p. 127).— A suggestion towards the origin of the word may perhaps be gained by comparing with it the word oxy, said by Halliwell to be generally applied to land in the sense of "wet, soft, spongy," and also with the various words to which the first syllable seems more or less allied, and having the general sense of holes, or, capable of being pushed full of holes, such as pock, poke, poached, etc. M. C. L.

nify a place where all sorts of warlike stores are kept."

Not for fifty years later was a new application of the word mentioned by Johnson (1773):

"Of late," he says, "this word has signified a miscellaneous pamphlet from a periodical miscellany called the Gentleman's Magazine, and published under the name of Sylvanus Urban, by Edward Cave."

The good doctor might have added the date of Cave's first issue, —, 1731, and we should then have been fixed.

A "magazine" then means a store, and is a word we got through French and Spanish from the Arabic Al Makhāzin, the storehouse.

Packenham and the Wine Cask (Vol. viii, p. 4). I have heard that the body of Nelson was taken back to England in a hogshead of spirits and that one of his fingers came through the bung-hole. A sailor saw it and gave them a farewell grasp, as the last of his beloved commander. As to the wine being sold and drank, there is an awful story that Mme. von Platen, a wicked old German countess, favorite of George I of England, used to take milk-baths and utilize her extravagance by giving the milk to the poor.

E. PRIOLEAU.

Indigenous Tea Substitutes (Vol. vii, pp. 67, 128, 198, 222, etc.).—In Alice M. Earle's pleasant book, "The Sabbath in Puritan New England," p. 301, I find mention of a plant that to me was hitherto quite unknown as a surrogate for tea.

"

The statement is there made that the "liberty tea of the colonists was made of the four-leaved loosestrife. The plant appears to have been prepared for use by quite an elaborate process, and the prepared leaves readily sold for sixpence a pound. The name of this plant, loosestrife, like its Greek name, lysimachia, is said to signify "a composer of strife," and it was once believed that if oxen would not work well together in the yoke, the administration of this plant (or of another of the same name) would render them good yokefellows. The four-leaved loosestrife (Lysimachia quadrifolia, is a very common roadside plant in New England) but in my time I never knew it to be put to any use. If I live to see another summer I shall make a trial of this old "liberty tea." S. X. K.

Setting a Horse's Leg (Vol. viii, p. 15).— Talking of the so-called three-legged trotter Del Wind, Horse World says that, when a colt, he broke his hind leg at the stifle. After some deliberation, Sam Gamble concluded to save him, SO he had him

placed in slings until the fractured bones united. He was just able to limp around again when he broke the same leg, but in another place. Once more he was placed in slings, and was suspended for weeks, all the time receiving the most careful attention. For months he never put his foot to the ground, and when let down he had forgotten how to walk. Finally he was able to move his limbs, and Mr. Meese took such a liking to the fellow's gameness that he bred him to some mares, and began to drive him easily along the road. He improved so in his speed that Gamble took hold of him, and at Stockton he won a race against J. Kenner's Lightfoot. Time, 2.29% and 2.2734.

NEW YORK.

P. M.

Flooding the Sahara (Vol. vi, pp. 159, etc.). By cutting a canal some fifteen miles long and 160 feet in greatest depth from the Gulf of Gabes to the Shott al Fejej, and by cutting across a few minor inland ridges, it would be easy to cover some 3100 square miles of the desert with water having an average depth of about seventy-eight feet. But it would probably cost $40,000,000 to effect this flooding, and if it all were done according to the programme, there is much doubt as to whether any advantage would accrue from it. OBED.

Rouncefall (Vol. vii, pp. 130, 261).Since a "rouncefall," or "tumbling

verse," was suitable for invectives, it looks as though the word might have a connection with a rounsival, virago," which Halliwell gives from Coles. Also, in the phrase quoted (p. 261) from Stanyhurst, may not "rounsefal" mean, by the use of a common personification, scolding or complaint, and so come into the same alliance ? M. C. L. NEW YORK CITY.

Everglades (Vol. vi, p. 256); also Pocosin or Pocoxin (Vol. vii, p. 127).-It is almost never safe to hazard a statement as to an unusual use of a word, unless one can refer to chapter and verse, and a citation from memory is of little value. But I have a distinct recollection of reading in some book an account of the Everglades of North