560 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 163. 



a steril and pointless address announced for the oc- 

 casion." 



We are not told by whom the catcalls were 

 played ; that they were once used by critics and 

 gentlemen will appear from the following passages : 



«' He did intend to have engraved here many his- 

 tories ; as the first night of Captain B 's play, 



where you would have seen critics in embroidery 

 transplanted from the boxes to the pit, whose ancient 

 inhabitants were exalted to the galleries, where they 

 played upon catcalls" — Joseph Andrews, b. iii. c. 6. 



By the way, who was Captain B ? I have 



seen the blank filled up with "Breval;" but as 

 Captain Breval, the dramatist, recorded in The 

 Dunciad, died in 1739, Fielding would hardly 

 have so noticed him three years later, 

 Lloyd, in his Law Student, says : 

 " By law let others strive to gain renown ! 

 Florio's a gentleman, a man o' th' town. 

 He nor courts, clients, or the law regarding, 

 Hurries from Nando's down to Covent Garden. 

 Yet he's a scholar, — mark him in the pit, 

 With critic catcall sound the stops of wit J 

 Supreme at George's he harangues the throng, 

 Censor of style from tragedy to song ; 

 Him every witling views with secret awe, 

 Deep in the drama, shallow in the law." 



Lloyd's Works, vol. i. p, 24., Lond. 1774. 



Florio is represented as a would-be man of 



fashion, but his ostentatious use of the catcall 



shows that it was not reputed a vulgar instrument 



eighty years ago. H. B. C. 



Garrick Club. 



I am surprised that the investigating querist 

 M. M. E. has not been able to discover " any one 

 who has heard or seen the (above) instrument," 

 since I recollect in my schoolboy days that the so- 

 named catcall was often used as a common whistle, 

 and' even now at our theatres it is too frequently 

 made the medium through which " the gods " 

 cause themselves to be heard. Its construction is 

 very simple, being two circular pieces of tin, in 

 diameter rather more than a shilling, perforated 

 in the centre, and attached by solder to a small 

 tube of the same metal, scarcely half an inch in 

 length. The instrument is held in the mouth be- 

 tween the teeth and lips, being nearly concealed 

 by the latter, when, by means of the tongue, and 

 inhaling and exhaling the breath, that fearful 

 screech is made, oftentimes so alarming to dra- 

 matic authors. 



Having made the Note, let me in my turn put 

 a Query. What is the unde derivatur of catcalls ? 

 for the sound by no means resembles the squeal of 

 the feline race in anger, nor the loving invitation 

 of Tabby to Tom in the gutter. Neither can I 

 imagine it to have been invented by Mother 

 Bunch, that phoenix of nursery literature, for the 



purpose of summoning her pets, as a sportsman 

 uses his dog-whistle to call or direct his pointers 

 or spaniels. G. T. B. M. 



I am surprised that M. M. E. should doubt the 

 existence of the catcall. He will find in Johnson's 

 Dictionary, " Catcall, a squeaking instrument used 

 in the playhouse to condemn plays," and I myself 

 have seen and possessed, and have heard in play- 

 houses even in the present century, what were 

 called catcalls. It was a small circular whistle, 

 composed of two plates of tin about the size of 

 a halfpenny, perforated by a hole in the centre, 

 and connected by a band or border of the same 

 metal, about one-eighth of an inch thick. The 

 sound given was sharp and shrill, and the ad- 

 vantage of the instrument in the playhouse was 

 that it was altogether concealed within the 

 mouth, and that the perpetrator of the noise 

 could not be easily detected. In my school-days 

 it was in frequent use in our sports and our row». 



C. 



BUBTING ALIVE AS A PUNISHMENT. 



(VoLvi., p. 245.) 



I am not able to inform your correspondent 

 John H. A. if this punishment has at any time 

 been inflicted by judicial authority upon criminals 

 in England. Blackstone (^Comment., book iv. 

 chap. XV.), quoting Fleta, informs us that the 

 ancient Goths were wont, in case of a particular 

 crime, to punish indifierently with burning to 

 death or burying alive ; and we learn from Calmet, 

 who in the early editions of his Dictionary gives a 

 plate representing its Infliction, that it was resorted 

 to occasionally by the Jewish nation : 



" Comment," says Voltaire in his caustic way (Prir 

 de la Justice, et de V Humanite, article xxvi. ), " le bene- 

 dictin Calmet s'est-il pu divertir a faire graver dans un 

 dictionnaire, des estampes de tons les tourmens qui 

 etoient en usage chez la petite nation Judaique ? Etre 

 precipite du haut d'un rocher sur des cailloux ; ou 

 bien etre lapide avec ces cailloux dont le pays est con- 

 vert, et de la etre pendu a une potence pour y attendre 

 la mort ; itre enterre vivant dans un monceau de cendres," 

 &c. 



Of the comparatively recent use of this punish- 

 ment among the French, an instance is recorded in 

 the amusing miscellany of Vigneul-MarvIUe (Dom 

 Noel d'Argonne) : 



" Enterrer vifs les criminels etoit encore un supplice 

 de ce tems-la. En 1460, dit la meme Chronique (la 

 Chronique scandaleuse), /M</at< mourir et enfouye. toute 

 vive audit lieu de Paris, une femme nominee Perrele 

 Mauger, pour occasion de ce que la dite Perrete avoit fait 

 et commis plusieurs larcins, ^c. Pour lesquels cas et autres 

 par elk confessez, fut condamnee par sentence donnee du 

 Prevost de Paris, nomme Messire Robert Destouteinlk 

 Chevalier, a souffrir mort, et estre enfouye toute vive 



