?90 



NOTES AND QUERIES. [2»«i S. No 67., April 11/ 



ferring to whicb, and to the answers, I find that 

 universal tradition seems to attach the name 

 Desmas to the penitent, Gestas (or Yes mas) to 

 the impenitent thief. Now, if the local tradition 

 and superstition here alluded to has any reference 

 to these names, it would seem as if Desmas was 

 the name of ill omen. Possibly some correspond- 

 ent may explain that " Dyzemas Day " is referable 

 to a different etymology altogether. A. B, R. 



Belmont. 



Champagne, trhen first mentioned. — What is 

 the eurliest mention of champagne in any English 

 writer ? Is there any before Lady Wortley 

 Montagu's Champagne and a Chicken at last ? 

 Sir Walter Scott, in the memorable supper scene 

 in Peveril of the Peah, introduces Chiffinch and 

 his guests as drinking champagne in Charles II.'s 

 time. But is the wine ever referred to in the 

 dramatists or other writers of that period ? 



Is there indeed mention of any kind of effer- 

 vescent wines, as in use in England, prior to the 

 commencement of the eighteenth century ? That 

 they are of high antiquity on the continent, we 

 learn from Virgil's well-known lines : 



« ille irapiger hausit 



Spumantem pateram, et pleno se proluit auro." 



Anon. 



Shall Queen Anne have a Statue ? — The statue 

 of Queen Anne, in St. Paul's churchyard, seems 

 endowed with the undesirable power of provoking 

 the malice of iconoclasts. Placards on the railing 

 of the church just now offer rather a scanty re- 

 ward for the detection of a scoundrel who has 

 knocked off the right arm of the figure. In an 

 old-fashioned folio before me, called The New 

 ■ British Traveller, and without a date, but com- 

 pleted about 1780, a description of the statue is 

 followed by the statement that — 



" Some years ago, a poor Black, who was delirious, re- 

 turning home to his lodgings at night, climbed over the 

 rails, and broke some part of this statue ; but it has since 

 been repaired, and restored to its former beauty." 



Shirley Brooks. 



Garrick Club, March 31, 1857. 



Origin of the Treadwheel. — 



" Few people are, I imagine, aware of the origin of the 

 treadwheel. It was the invention of Mr. Cubitt, the en- 

 gineer of Lowestoft in Suflfolk, a gentleman of science, of 

 extensive professional connections, and of gentle and 

 pleasing deportment. The notion of such a piece of ma- 

 chinery owed its conception in his mind to a singular 

 casualty. I received the following narration from his own 

 lips. 



" All who may be acquainted with the county gaol of 

 Suffolk at Bury St. Edmund's, or rather such as it was 

 twenty j-ears and upwards ago, must be aware of the un- 

 sightly feature then existing (after passing through the 

 main entrance) of mere open iron fences separating j-ards 

 occupied by prisoners from the passage trodden by in- 

 coming visitors. The inmates in repulsive groups were 



seen lounging idly about, and the whole aspect indicated 

 a demoralising waste of strength and time. 



"Under such dispositions, and some years before Mr. 

 Cubitt's relation tome, that gentleman was in professional 

 communication with the magistrates at the gaol of Bury ; 

 and there he and a magistrate, the one going out and the 

 other entering, met in the described passage, from which, 

 as they stood to converse, the prisoners, as usual, were 

 seen idly loitering about. 



"*I wish to God, Mr. Cubitt,' said the justice, 'you 

 could suggest to us some mode of employing those fellows ! 

 Could nothing like awheel become available.'' An in- 

 stantaneous idea flashed through the mind of Mr. Cubitt, 

 who whispered to himself, ' the wheel elongated,' an<l 

 merely saying to his interrogator, ' Something has struck 

 me which may prove worthy of further consideration, and 

 perhaps you may hear from me upon the subject,' he took 

 his leave. 



" After-reflection enabled Mr. Cubitt to fashion all the 

 mechanical requirements into a practical form ; and by 

 such a casual incident did the treadwheel start into 

 existence, and soon came into general adoption in the 

 prisons of the country as the type of hard labour." 



I have taken the above extract from Chester- 

 ton's Revelations of Prison Life, vol. i. pp. 224, 

 225., for the purpose of asking the date of Mr. 

 Cubitt's invention, and to express an opinion that 

 it might be well introduced in the Corradino 

 prison of this island. By its introduction there 

 can be no doubt that the labour of the magis- 

 trates would be greatly diminished, and the yearly 

 number of the priscmers greatly reduced, — two 

 very desirable results. W. W. 



Malta. 



Quotations Wanted. — 



" Our hopes, like towering falcons, aim 

 At knowledge from their airy height ; 

 But all the pleasure of the game 

 Is from afar to view the flight." 



" The wildest wreath fantastic Folly wears 

 Is not so sweet as Virtue's very tears." 



H. L. M, 



" Of all pains, the greatest pain 

 It is to love, and love in vain." 



Rosalie. 



" The sunken cheek and lantern jaw. 

 Betray the venomed restless mind : 

 Whose only solace is to pre}' 

 Upon the sorrows of mankind." 



S. Wm. 



Major Lewis Kemeys. — Major Lewis Kemeys, 

 of the Hon. Colonel Hill's regiment of foot, in his 

 will dated July 18, 1706, says that he had lately 

 purchased of his brother and sister Betson a real 

 estate at Falsgrave, in the parish of Scarborough, 

 which, as we learn from the will of his son Lewis, 

 was called " the Highfield." Lewis, the son, in- 

 herited a moiety of the estate, and left it to his 

 only son John. Can any Yorkshire F.S.A. in- 

 form me how the Betsous became brother and 



