2nd S. No 90., Sept. 19. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



239 



I was not gan'in' tomak our Lenn. a gir-r-ter-r-r 

 fule than he was a'ready." In pleasing contrast 

 to the above, a valued friend of mine, when lately 

 in London, bought some books at a shop in Pater- 

 noster Row. On receiving the order, the shopman 

 very politely offered to send them to my friend's 

 lodgings, and asked for name and address. On 

 the shopman's writing "Thomas . . . ., Esquire^'' 

 my friend, interrupting, said, "please to strike 

 out esquire, and put mister instead, for I am only 

 a solicitor, and solicitors, you know, are only gen- 

 tlemen." I was much amused at the earnest sim- 

 plicity of the narration, for my friend is as much 

 entitled by courtesy to be styled esquire as he is 

 by act of parliament to " write himself" gentleman. 

 I will only add that a very foolish custom gene- 

 rally prevails of private gentlemen dubbing them- 

 selves esquires, by painting that much-abused word 

 upon their carts : the sooner the custom is abo- 

 lished the better, R. W. Dixon. 

 Seaton-Carew, co. Durham. 



Aneroid (2"'' S. iii. 77.) — The aneroid barome- 

 ter, in its present shape, is the invention of M. 

 Lucien Vidie, an advocate at Paris. The first 

 suggestion of the principle, i. e. a flexible air-tight 

 diaphragm, extended over an exhausted box or 

 receiver, and showing by its deflexions the vary- 

 ing weight or pressure of the superincumbent at- 

 mosphere, was made by M. Conte, one of the savans 

 who accompanied Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, 

 and will be found in the Bulletin des Sciences, 

 Floreal, an. 6. p. 106. (Brit. Mus.) 



From the circumstance of this diaphragm being 

 interposed between the vacuum and the air, I 

 have always considered that aneroid was derived 

 from avap^Tryvvj-u or ava^pr]yvvcD, difBndo, dirumpo, 

 &c. But I have no authority for this. Mr. E. J. 

 Dent, the inventor's agent, and who published a 

 pamphlet on the aneroid, could doubtless inform 

 you. 



In June, 1852, the case of Vidie v. Smith, an 

 action for the infringement of this patent, was tried 

 at Guildhall, before L. C. J. Jervis and a special 

 jury. M. Vidie was examined as a witness, and 

 produced several beautiful modifications of his in- 

 vention, upon which he was highly complimented 

 by the court. But the verdict was for the de- 

 fendant, upon the ground that his instrument, a 

 steam indicator, did not come within the principle 

 of the aneroid. H, W. 



Nottingham. 



''Yend:'' '^ Voack" (2°'^ S. iv. 150.) — "To 

 ycnd (or throw) a stone " is to send it ; to throw 

 being a secondary meaning of the verb to send, 



just as it is of the Heb. TV^, and of the Lat. mitto. 

 " To voach on your corns," in the sense of tread- 

 ing on them, is to poach on them ; poach being an 

 old English word which, with a particular refer- 



ence to cattle, signifies to tread. Ground much 

 trodden by beasts is still said in West Kent to be 

 poached. 



In thus interpreting yend by send, and voach by 

 poach, we are borne out by the analogies of the 

 English language. The initial letters of yend and 

 voach, y and v, are both of them very frequently 

 substituted for other letters in old and provincial 

 English, 



Thus we have y for g, yaf and yave for gave, 

 yeld-hall for guild-hall ; y for w, yal for whole, yege 

 for wedge ; y for h, yam for home ; y for s, yar for 

 sour ; so yend for se7id. 



We have in like manner v for k, vennel for hen- 

 nel ; v for b, varnde for burnt ; v for f, veire for 

 fair ; v for p, veyne for penance (pcena or pain') ; 

 so voach for poach. 



With regard to the verb to poach, in this sense 

 of treading, should you be out shooting this Sep- 

 tember where the soil is clay, and in the course of 

 your morning's ramble with dog and gun, should 

 you have to pass throtigh the gateway of a mea- 

 dow where the milch-cows, driven to be milked, 

 and driven back morning and evening, pass four 

 times a day, you will have an excellent oppor- 

 tunity, while cautiously picking your road, to 

 learn what is meant by the poaching of cattle ; 

 especially if the weather is under the influence of 

 a watery planet, for then you will find the whole 

 width of the gate trodden into tenacious mud. 

 You will also, if stuck fast, be in a highly favour- 

 able position for studying the etymology of the 

 verb to poach ; for you will then have the satis- 

 faction of remarking that the holes left in the clay 

 by the hoofs of the kine are full of moisture which 

 the clay refuses to filtrate, so that each hole is in 

 fact a pocket of water. This may induce the con- 

 jecture that the verb to poach is derived from the 

 French poche, a pocket. Thomas Boys. 



P.S. With regard to the phrase " riding the 

 hatch" (2"'^ S. iv. 143.), perhaps your correspon- 

 dent T. Q. C. will have the kindness to state the 

 locality where it is used, whether inland or on the 

 coast. Were the premises ascertained, an answer 

 might be given. 



Lord Stowell (2"'^ S. iv. 104.) — Several of the 

 judgments and decisions of this distinguished 

 judge have been printed and published by Messrs. 

 Clark in Edinburgh, in a cheap form, and can be 

 had on application. T. G. S. 



Tall Men and Women (2"i_ S. iil. 347. 436.) — 

 Add the following from Beattie's Scotland, 1838 : 



" The late Mr. Booklers, schoohnaster of Hutton (Dura- 

 fries}, was seven feet four inches high." 



Note. — " He seems to have had a contemporary in 

 Melchior Thut, a native of Glaris, Switzerland, who ' 

 measured seven feet three inches, and in 1801, the period 

 at which Dr. Ebel saw him, was considered the last de- 

 scendant of a race of giants whose bones are still occa- 



