300 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 286. 



James DaTidson, farmer, Hindlee, Roxburgh- 

 shire. It was at the hospitable farmhouse of 

 Hindlee that Sir Walter Scott was wont to spend 

 the night in his incursions into Liddesdale in quest 

 of border ballads ; and it has long been accepted 

 that the husband of the deceased sat for a well- 

 known portrait in the pages of Guy Mannering. 

 All connected with the life of the Last Minstrel 

 are fast disappearing from the earthly scene. O. 



The Management and Disposal of our Criminal 

 Population. — In the October number of the 

 Edinburgh Review., there is a long and ably-written 

 article under the above heading, which requires a 

 word of remark. The writer would appear se- 

 riously to recommend that as there are no English 

 penal colonies for reformed convicts, they should 

 hereafter either be sent to New York or to 

 Canada, by the way of Halifax. 



How far such a proposition might be acceptable 

 to the Canadians, should the experiment be tried, 

 would doubtless soon be made known by the 

 Colonial Assembly, consisting at present of one 

 hundred and thirty members, forty being men of 

 the legal profession ; but that the liberal offer of 

 increasing the population of the United States 

 with shipments from time to time of European 

 convicts is certain to be rejected, will be seen by 

 the following extract from a recent American 

 journal : 



" On Wednesday, December 20th, 1854, the New York 

 police arrested twelve convicts on board the ship ' Ro- 

 chambeau,' as she was coming up the bay from Antwerp, 

 where they had been shipped by the Belgian government. 

 Judge Beebe ordered them to be locked up in the tombs 

 until provision could be made for their conveyance back 

 to Belgium." 



w. w. 



Malta. 



Epigram, on Sir John Leech. — The following 

 epigram is of perhaps a nearly similar date with 

 that quoted by Lord Derby, and which has been 

 discussed in " N. & Q. : " 



" On Mr. Leech (afterwards Sir John) going over from the 

 Opposition to the Tories. 



"The Leech you've just bought should first have been 

 tried. 

 To examine its nature and powers. 

 You can hardly expect it will stick to your side, 

 Having fall'a off so lately from ours." 



A Pointer. 



The new Museum at Oxford. — Two cities, Co- 

 logne and Oxford, whose chief structures are some 

 of the finest existing monuments of Gothic archi- 

 tecture, are about to erect museums for scientific 

 purposes. Oxford has selected a design borrowed 

 from the Rheno-Gothic style, and Cologne has 

 departed from her own rich soil and chosen an 

 English style, the later English, or Tudor Gothic. 

 At Cologne, as at Oxford, the successful design 



has not given entire satisfaction, and disputes and 

 heart-burnings have arisen among contending 

 architects. It is an interesting sign of the times 

 to see in two cities, so long the seats of a devoted 

 adherence to antiquity, both in its form and sub- 

 stance, the enthronement of modern science in 

 structures that still harmonise with the general 

 aspect of these cities, proving that the love of 

 Gothic architecture is still triumphant in them. 

 The name of the Rev. R. Greswell should be men- 

 tioned as an ardent supporter of the new museum,, 

 and an advocate for it in spite of many discourage- 

 ments ; and it may also be stated that twenty 

 additional acres, and not ten, as some papers have 

 represented, have been purchased by the university 

 to open up walks in the neighbourhood, and for 

 constructing a bridge across the Cherwell. J. M. 



<ati«rwjE»» 



WHO SEIZED BELLINGHAM, HUME OR JERDAN r 



The Daily News of March 16th contained a 

 letter signed " W. A. W. Bird, Star of Gwent 

 Office, Cardiff," stating that — 



" On the occasion of Lieut. Bellingham firing at Mr. 

 Spencer Perceval in the House of Commons' lobby in 

 1812, Mr. Hume, who happened to be near, was the first 

 to collar the delinquent, and, I believe, held him tightly 

 until the arrival of a magistrate." 



I have always understood that Mr. Jerdan 

 seized the assassin, and on the following authority i 

 1 . In Dr. Maginn's notice of Mr. Jerdan in Erasers 

 Magazine for June 1830, the Doctor states, " He 

 (Jerdan) seized in the House of Commons Bel- 

 lingham, the assassin of Perceval." 2. In Lord 

 Byron's Works (1-vol. ed.), p. 879., the editor 

 (Moore) speaks of — 



" "Wm. Jerdan, Esq., of Grove House, Brompton, who i* 

 sure of being remembered hereafter for his gallant seizure 

 of Bellingham, the assassin of Perceval, in tlie lobby of 

 the House of Commons on the 11th May, 1812." 



3. In Mr. Jerdan's Autobiography (vol. i. p. 135.), 

 after describing the murder of Mr. Perceval, he 



states : 



" Mr. Eastaff pointed him out and called, ' That'is the 

 murderer.' Bellingham moved slowly to a bench and sar 

 down. I fbllowed the direction of Mr. Eastafir's hand and 

 seized the assassin by the collar, but without violence on . 

 the one side or resistance on the other. A crowd now 

 came up, and in a minute or two General Gascoigne, Mr.. 

 Hume, Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Pole, and twelve or fifteen 

 members from the House." 



4. At p. 138. Mr. Jerdan says : 



" I consider it due to myself to state that no hand was^ 

 laid on the assassin in the lobby except my own, and Mr. 

 Bowling's for a few moments, till he relinquished it to 

 go in front and empty the pockets of the criminal, handing 

 the papers to Mr. Hume, who identified them by his- 

 initials." 



