Jan. 15. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



73 



The Budget (Vol. vi., p. 604.). — It may be 

 useful to inform Pkestoniensis, that, in a recent 

 work on political economy, M. Ch. Coquelin says, 

 that the word budget, in its present signification, 

 has passed into France from England : the latter 

 country having first borrowed it from the old 

 French language — hougette signifying (and par- 

 ticularly in old Norman) a leather purse. It was 

 the custom in England to put into a leather bag 

 the estimates of receipts and expenditure pre- 

 sented to parliament : and hence, as Coquelin 

 observes, the term passed from the containant to 

 the contained, and, with this new signification, 

 returned from this country into France ; where it 

 was first used in an oflicial manner in the arretes 

 of the Consul's 4th Thermidor, year X, and 17th 

 Germinal, year XI. F. II. 



" Catching a Tartar" (Vol. vi., p. 317.). — This 

 common and expressive saying is thus explained 

 in Arvine's Cyclojxsdia : 



" In some battle between the Russians and the 

 Tartars, who are a wild sort of people in the north of 

 Asia, a private soldier called out, ' Captain, halloo 

 there 1 I've caught a Tartar ! ' ' Fetch him along 

 then,' said the Captain. ' Ay, but he won't let me,' 

 said the man. And the fact was the Tartar liad 

 caught him. So when a man thinks to take another 

 in, and gets himself bit, they say he's caught a 

 Tartar." 



Grose says that this saying originated with an 

 Irish soldier who was in the " Imperial," that is, I 

 suppose he means the Austrian service. This is 

 hardly probable ; the Irish are made to father 

 many sayings which do not rightly belong to 

 them, and this I think may be safely written as 

 one among the number. 



EiRioNNACH has now two references before 

 him, Grose's Glossary and Ai'vine's Cyclopcedia, 

 in which his Query is partly explained, if he can 

 but find the dates of their publication. In this 

 search I regret I cannot assist him, as neither of 

 these works are to be found in the libraries of 

 this island ; at least thus far I have not been able 

 to meet with them. W. W. 



IVIalta. 



The J'ermination ^^ -itis" (Vol. vii., p. 13.). — 

 Adsum asks : "What is the derivation of the term 

 -itis, used principally in medical words, and these 

 signifying inflammation ? " If " N. & Q." were a 

 medical journal, the question might be answered 

 at length, to the great advantage of the profession ; 

 for, of late years, this termination has been tacked 

 on by medical writers, especially foreigners, to 

 words of all kinds, in utter defiance of the rules 

 of language : as if a Greek affix were quite a 

 natural ending to a Latin or French noun, -itis 

 can with propriety be appended only to those 

 Greek nouns whose adjectives cud in -jttjs : e. g. 



■rrXevpa, irXivpirrjs ; Kepas, Keparirrjs, &C. UKevpirts IS 

 used by Hippocrates. u\ivpa means the mem- 

 brane lining the side of the chest : irKevpiTis (i^oaos 

 understood) is morbus lateralis, the side -disease, 

 or pleurisy. In the same manner keratitis is a 

 very legitimate synonym for disease of the horny 

 coat (cornea) of the eye. But medical writers, 

 disregarding the rules of language, have, for some 

 years past, revelled in the use of their favourite 

 -itis to a most ludicrous extent. Thus, from 

 cornea, they make " corneitis," and describe an 

 inflammation of the crystalline lens as lentitis. Nay, 

 some French and German writers on diseases of 

 the eyes have coined the monstrous word " Des- 

 cemetitis," on the ground, that one Monsieur 

 Descemet discovered a structure in the eye, which, 

 out of compliment to him, was called " the mem- 

 brane of Descemet." Jatdee. 



BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES 



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Defence or Usury, by Bentham. (A Tract.) 



Treatise on Law, by Mackinloch. 



Two DiscotiRSEs OF Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead, 



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 What the Chartists are. A Letter to English Working Men, 



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 Letter of Church Rates, by Ralph Barnes. 8vo. London, 



1837. 

 Colman's Translation of Horace De Arte Poetica. 4to. 1783. 

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Owing to the necessity of infringing on the present Number for 

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B. H. C.'s communication on the subject of "Proclamations " 

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