146 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 198. 



illuminated surface on the moon would make the 

 change in the weather vary with the amount of 

 moonshine, which of course is absurd, as in that case 

 the clouds would have much more to do with the 

 question than the moon's shadow. But still it may- 

 be said the moon may influence the weather as it 

 is supposed to cause the tides. In answer to this 

 I beg to state the opinion of Dr. Ick, who was for 

 upwards of ten years the curator of the Birming- 

 !iani Philosophical Institute, an excellent meteoro- 

 logist, geologist, and botanist. He assured me 

 that after the closest and most accurate observa- 

 tion of the moon and the weather, he had arrived 

 at the conclusion that there is not the slightest 

 observable dependence between them. 



C. Mansfield Ingleby. 

 Birmingham. 



• Warwickshire Folk Lore, — The only certain 

 remedy for the bite of an adder is to kill the 

 offending reptile, and apply some of its fat to the 

 wound. Whether the fat should be raw or melted 

 down, my informant did not say, but doubtless 

 the same effect would be produced in either case. 

 If a pig is killed in the wane of the moon, the 

 bacon is sure to shrink in the boiling ; if, on the 

 other hand, the pig is killed when the moon is at 

 the full, the bacon will swell. Erica, 



Warwick. 



Northamptonshire Folk Lore. — There is a sin- 

 gular custom prevailing in some parts of Nor- 

 thamptonshire, and perhaps some of your cor- 

 respondents may be able to mention other places 

 where a similar practice exists. If a female is 

 afflicted with fits, nine pieces of silver money and 

 nine threehalfpences are collected from nine ba- 

 chelors : the silver money is converted into a ring 

 to be worn by the afflicted person, and the three- 

 halfpences (z. e. 13irf.) are paid to the maker of 

 the ring, an inadequate remuneration for his la- 

 bour, but which he good-naturedly accepts. If 

 the afflicted person be a male, the contributions 

 are levied upon females. E. H. 



Slow-worm Superstition (Vol. viii., p. 33.). — As 

 a child I was always told by the servants that if 

 any serpent was " scotched, not killed," it would 

 revive if it could reach its hole before sunset, but 

 that otherwise it must die. Hence the custom, so 

 universal, of hanging any serpent on a tree after 

 killing it. Seleucus. 



A Devonshire Charm for the Thrush. — On 

 visiting one of my parishioners, whose infant was 

 ill with the thrush, I asked her what medicine she 

 had given the child ? She replied, she had done 

 nothing to it but say the eighth Psalm over it. I 

 found that her cure was to repeat the eighth Psalm 

 over the infant three times, three days running; and 

 on my hesitating a doubt as to the efficacy of the 



remedy, she appealed to the case of another of her 

 children who had suffered badly from the thrush, 

 but had been cured by the use of no other means. 

 If it was said " with the virtue," it was, she de- 

 clared, an unfailing cure. The mention, in this 

 Psalm, of " the mouths of babes and sucklings," 

 I suppose led to its selection. W. Fbaser. 



Tor-Mohun. 



OLD JOKES. 



Every man ought to read the jest-books, that 

 he may not make himself disagreeable by re- 

 peating " old Joes " as the very last good things. 

 One book of this class is little more than the 

 copy of another as to the points, with a change 

 of the persons ; and the same joke, slightly varied, 

 appears in as many different countries as the same 

 fairy-tale. Seven years ago I found at Prngue 

 the " Joe " of the Irishman saying that there were 

 a hundred judges on the bench, because there was 

 one with two cyphers. The valet-de-place told 

 me that when the Emperor and Metternich were 

 together they were called " the council of ten," 

 because they were eins und zero. 



It is interesting to trace a joke back, of which 

 process I send an example. In the very clever 

 version of the Chancellor of Oxford's speech on. 

 introducing the new doctors {Punchy No. 622.) 

 are these lines : 



" En Henleium ! en Stanleium ! Hie eminens pro- 

 sator : 

 IIlc, filius pulchro patre, hercle pulclirior orator ; 

 Demosthenes in herba, sed in ore retinens illos 

 Quos, antequam peroravit, Grcecus respuit lapillos." 



Ebenezer Grubb, in his description of the oppo- 

 sition in 1814, thus notices Mr. P. Douglas : 



" He is a forward and frequent speaker ; remarkable 

 for a graceful inclination of the upper part of his body 

 in advance of the lower, and spcaketh, I suspect (cifter 

 the manner of an ancient), with pebbles in his mouth." — 

 New Whig Guide, 1819, p. 47. 



In Foote's Patron, Sir Roger Dowlas, an East 

 India proprietor, who has sought instruction in 

 oratory from Sir Thomas Lofty, is introduced ta 

 the conversazione : — 



" Sir Thomas. Sir Roger, be seated. This gentle- 

 man has, in common with the greatest orator the world 

 ever saw, a small natural infirmity ; he stutters a little i 

 but I have prescribed the same remedy that Demo- 

 sthenes used, and don't despair of a radical cure. Well, 

 sir, have you digested those general rules ? 



Sir Roger. Pr-ett-y well, I am obli-g'd to you. 

 Sir Th-omas. 



Sir Thomas. Did you open at the last general 

 court ? 



Sir Roger. I att-empt-ed fo-ur or five times. 



Sir Thomas. What hindered your progress ? 



Sir Roger, The pe-b-bles. 



