2^<i S. No 61., Feb, 28. '67.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



165 



that such is the fact, but I must take leave to 

 doubt it." Now, if the speaker or writer be as- 

 sured of the fact, he is not at liberty to doubt it. 

 » Further, why should one say that he enjoys 

 had health, when bad health plainly cannot be en- 

 joyed ; or why should one say that he dissuaded 

 his friend from the course pursued, when the fact 

 of his friend having pursued that course shows 

 that he did not dissuade him, but only advised him 

 against it. 



How often do we hear some such expression as 

 "I've got no right to be asked these questions," 

 or, "I've no right to be bullied by you," the 

 speaker wishing to signify that you have no right 

 to question him, and failing signally to express his 

 meaning. 



I regret to notice a tendency towards the in- 

 discriminate use of partially and partly. I see 

 people already running their heads against the 

 well-sounding metaphysical terms normal and ab- 

 normal. I know a gentleman who is reported to 

 have said of a certain place that he thought it 

 unjustly descried; and the same gentleman I have 

 known systematically adopt, in a dinner invita- 

 tion, the familiar mercantile conclusion, and re- 

 quest you to dine " and oblige yours truly." 



But, above all, you will confer special benefit 

 on the Queen's English, if you will knock out the 

 vulgarism of assisting to mutton, and drive from 

 among us the slovenly style which we are borrow- 

 ing from Commercial America in the phrase to 

 avail of : the restitution here of the pronoun ob- 

 jective must be made at once, or the solecism 

 will be established, if it be not so already. 



Finally, those of your readers conversant with 

 courts of justice cannot have failed to remark the 

 form in which the uneducated class of the com- 

 munity take the concluding part of the usual oath, 

 " So help me God." They almost invariably pro- 

 nounce it, " So help my God." 



On a recent occasion I saw a petition signed 

 by three men sentenced for burglary ; after, as a 

 mattef of course, accusing the jury of bias, and 

 the witnesses of perjury, they wound up with the 

 assertion of their innocence, and the attestation 

 thus pluralised from the original error : " So help 

 our Gods!" 



I mention this circumstance in order that those 

 at whose imperfections I have aimed above, may 

 reflect how indifference to grammatic accuracy 

 may lead to the grave sin of polytheism ! 



W. T. M. 



Hong Kong, 13 Dec. 1856. 



Minor ^attg» 



Iron Slag : its Application to Commercial Pur- 

 poses. — I trust it will be admitted I have proved 

 bricks, tiles, pipes, and pottery can be made cheaper 



and more durable from iron or clay slags than 

 from any other material ; having neither drying 

 nor burning to contend with, wherein lies all the 

 difficulty to be yet overcome by the advocates of 

 machinery versus handmaking by the common 

 process. And is it not reasonable to conclude, 

 that as iron ore is plentiful in the neighbourhood 

 of London, it will soon be manufactured where 

 the articles produced are required, whether coal 

 be found in the neighbourhood or not? — as the esti- 

 mate for bricks alone for London is 200,000,000 

 per annum, and it appears they are now supplied 

 within a circuit of 100 miles. If the carriage, 

 coals, and labour, attending the drying and burn- 

 ing of bricks, &c., are saved by the use of iron 

 slag, it will also enable the inhabitants of London 

 to use their dust and ashes for disinfecting the 

 greater part of their present sewage materials, or 

 rather preventing infection taking place, by mix- 

 ing and removing the same in a dry state before 

 they are washed into the drains ; and it may also 

 be applied to the contents of the sewers for disin- 

 fecting instead of lime, being much cheaper and 

 on the spot ; and I should think with far more 

 benefit, particularly if used for agricultural pur- 

 poses, as all earths are found to be the best for 

 disinfecting noxious materials. W. G. Elliott. 

 Blisworth. 



Warrant for the Expenses of the Funerall of 

 King Charles I. — 



" By virtue of an Ordinance of both Houses of Parlia- 

 ment of the One and twentieth daie of September 1643, 

 these are to will and require you, Out of such Publique 

 Revenue, as now is, or shall be in your hands, to pay 

 unto Tho. Herbert and Anthony Mildmay 200/., and to 

 Col" Harrison 300/., in all the Sum of Five Hundred 

 pounds, towards satisfaction of the Charges, and Expences 

 of the King's Funerall. And for soo doing this together 

 with their Acquittances, for the Keceipte thereof, shall be 

 your Warrant, and Discharge ; And also to the Auditor 

 generall to allowe the same in your Accompts. Dated 

 at the Committee of Lords and Commons for the Publique 

 Revenue sitting at Westminster the fifth of February, 

 1648. 



" Signed by Tho. Grey. 



Hen. Mildmay. 



John Trenchard. 



Cor. Holland. 



H. Edmonds. 

 "To our verie Loving freind Thomas Fauconbridg, 

 Esq., Receivor generall of the Publique Revenue." 



[We are indebted to the courtesy of its possessor for 

 permission to print the foregoing interesting document.] 



" New Interest Men.'^ — Mr. Crofton Croker, in 

 his Narratives Illustrative of the Contests in Ire- 

 land in 1641 and 1690, gives the following parti- 

 culars in a note, p. 125. : 



" Many curious traditions are current in Ireland re- 

 specting the manner in which Elizabethan and Crom- 

 wellian grants have been obtained from their soldiers b3' 

 the native Irish. An estate in the south of Ireland, at 

 present worth a thousand a -year, was risked by a trooper 

 to whose lot it fell, upon the turn up of a card, and is 



