2"'» S. No 57., Jan. 31. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



95 



Females at Vestries (2"'' S. iii. 48.) — Since the 

 fact is patent that females can fill the offices and 

 perform the duties of parish clerk and overseer 

 of the poor, it is difficult to perceive why they 

 should be debarred from acting as \estry -wometi, 

 or from filling any other parochial office which 

 can be legally held by a ratepayer. The names 

 of the females quoted by your correspondent 

 were doubtless entered in the parish books as 

 occupiers of tenements and themselves assessed 

 for the relief of the poor, and consequently they 

 were entitled (sex notwithstanding) to all the 

 usual privileges of ratepayers. I recollect that 

 about twenty-five years ago there occurred a 

 spirited church-rate contest in the parish of All 

 Saints, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and during the poll 

 a female tendered her vote against the proposed 

 rate, and although tlie novelty of the thing caused 

 a little hesitation and demur, the vote was duly 

 recorded. Female ratepayers also vote in the 

 elections of guardians of the poor, and may legally 

 do so in every contest that is strictly parochial. If 

 the practice is not general (and I do not think it 

 is) the fault is in the ladies themselves not exer- 

 cising their undoubted right. From municipal 

 elections females are entirely excluded. 



RoBEET S. Salmon. 



Newcastle-on-Tyne. 



Women, who are ratepayers, have evidently the 

 right to attend vestries, and to vote. They may 

 also fill pai'ish offices. I have known a widow 

 hold the office of churchwarden, and exercise the 

 right of attending vestry. J. Sansom. 



Female Overseers (2°^ S. i. 204.) — A lady 

 named Tozer was about to be made overseer, 

 when she sent to the vestry to announce her in- 

 tention of giving a shilling to every tramp. This 

 saved her from being elected. G. R. L. 



''Northaw'' (2°'^ S. iii. 11.)— M. N. will find a 

 Northall in Bucks, Northall or Northolt in Mid- 

 dlesex ; and Northaw, in Herts, is also found 

 written Northawe. Pennant says : 



" A little to the N. W. of Queenhithe, on Old Fish 

 Street Hill, stood the inn or town residence of the Lords 

 of Mont-liault or Mold, in Flintshire. The present church, 

 named from them St. Mary Mounthaw, had been their 

 chapel." 



Haw therefore i^ either the Sax. haga, an in- 

 closed piece of land, a small field, or holt, a wood. 



R. S. Chaenock. 

 Gray's Inn. 



" Shathmon" (2"'i S. iii. 69.) — Shathmon and 

 shaftmon are merely different orthographies of 

 shaftment or shaftmet {obs.'), " a measure from the 

 top of the extended thumb to the utmost part of 

 the palm, which in a tall man is about six inches 

 or half a foot," from A.-S. Scceftmund, from sccB/t, 



shaft, spear, and rnund, a hand, hand's breadth, a 

 palm. See Webs. Diet., Ray, and Bosworth. 



R. S. Chaei«ock. 

 Gray's Inn. 



"■ Perimus licitis'' (2"'* S. iii. 11.) — This was 

 the favourite saying of Sir Matthew Hale, but I 

 am unable to say whether it originated with him, 

 or from what source, if any, he borrowed it. 



Heney T. Riley. 



Sir John Vanbrugh (I" S. vii. 619. ; y'm.passim ; 

 2""* S. i. 7. 116.) — Your correspondents, in their 

 inquiries, have not noticed the fact that the elder 

 D'Israeli considers it a fact well established, that 

 Vanbrugh was born in the Bastile. In an article 

 in the Curiosities of Litei'ature (" Secret History 

 of the Building of Blenheim"), he quotes from a 

 letter written by Sir John : 



" She (the Duchess of Marlborough) has heartily en- 

 deavoured to throw me into an English bastile, there to 

 finish my days, as 1 began them, in a French one." 



This D'Israeli considers to be conclusive on the 

 subject, and adds : 



" The ancestor of Vanbrugh married Sir Dudley Carle- 

 ton's daughter. We are told that he had political con- 

 nexions ; and one of his political tours had probably occa- 

 sioned his confinement in that state dungeon, where his 

 lady was delivered of her burthen of love." 



It is just possible, however, that Vanbrugh, in 

 the words above quoted, may have alluded to his 

 first start in life ; which, according to the story 

 long current, dated from his confinement in the 

 Bastile, whence he was released by the French 

 government, in admiration of some comic sketches 

 of his which had come under the notice of the 

 prison authorities. Heney T. Riley. 



The First Brick Building in England (2°'' S. 

 iii. 30.) — Hurstmonceux Castle, in Sussex, is 

 said to be the first edifice ever constructed of 

 brick, in England. It was erected by De Fiennes, 

 treasurer to Henry VI. It was dismantled about 

 three quarters of a century ago, by one of the 

 Dacres, who erected another mansion on higher 

 ground. The old house is still superbly pic- 

 turesque ; but it is situated in a grassy hollow, 

 and looks very much like a huge piece of confec- 

 tionary in a green tureen. On a visit to Dudley 

 Castle, Staffordshire, a few days since, I observed 

 that the buildings on the eastern side of the court 

 were partly composed of brick. These buildings 

 are of the sixteenth century ; an hundred years 

 later than the date of the erection of Hurstmon- 

 ceux. J. DORAN. 



Cocker's "Arithmetic " (2°'' S. ii. 310.)— Several 

 articles having lately appeared in "N. & Q." on 

 Cocker's Arithmetic, from which it would appear 

 that no earlier edition is known than that of 1677, 

 and which edition is positively stated in one place 



