232 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 228. 



and buried him after he was eighty years of age." — 

 Seawens' Dissertation on the Cornish Tongue, written 

 temp. Car. II. 



Anon. 



As very many, if not all, the instances men- 

 tioned in " N. & Q." of those who have reached 

 a very advanced age, were people of humble 

 origin, may we not now refer to those of noble 

 birth ? To commence the list, I would name Sir 

 Ralph de Vernon, " who is said to have lived to 

 the age of one hundred and fifty, and thence 

 generally was called the Old Liver." My authority 

 is, Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, edit. 1848, 

 p. 1009. W. W. 



Malta. 



" Nugget" (Vol. viii., pp. 375. 481.).— A note 

 from Mundy's Our Antipodes : 



" The word nugget, among farmers, signifies a small 

 compact beast, a runt : among gold-miners, a lump, in 

 contradistinction to the scale or dust-gold." 



Cleric us Rusticus. 



i The fifth Lord Byron (Vol. ix., p. 18.).— I be- 

 lieve it to be an acknowledged fact, that an old 

 man's memory is generally good of events of years 

 past and gone : and as an octogenarian I am not 

 afraid to state that, from the discussions on the 

 subject, I feel myself perfectly correct as to the 

 main point of my observations (Vol. viii., p. 2.), 

 viz. the error committed in the limitation of the 

 ultimate reversion of the estate ; but as to the 

 secondary point to which Mr. Warden alludes, 

 I may perhaps be in error in placing it on the 

 settlement of the son, inasmuch as the effect would 

 be the same if it occurred in the settlement of 

 the father ; and Mr. Warden's observations leave 

 an inference that the mistake may have there 

 occurred ; as, in such case, if the error had been 

 discovered, — and by any altercation the son had 

 refused to correct the mistake, which he could 

 and ought to have consented to, after the failure 

 of his own issue, — this alone, between two hasty 

 tempers, would have been a sufficient cause of 

 quarrel, without reference to the question of 

 marrying an own cousin, which is often very justly 

 objectionable. Wm. S. Hesleden. 



Wapple, or Whapple-way (Vol. ix., p. 125.). — 

 This name is common in the south, and means 

 a bridle-way, or road in which carriages cannot 

 pass. In Sussex these ways are usually short cuts 

 through fields and woods, from one road or place 

 to another. (See Halliwell's Dictionary, and 

 Cooper's Sussex Glossary.) The derivation is not 

 given by either writer. D. 



In Manning's Surrey, I find not any mention of 

 this term ; but apprehend it to be a corruption of 

 the Norman -French, vert plain, " a green road or 



alley :" which, as our Saxon ancestors pronounced 

 the v as a w, easily slides into war plain or warple. 

 (See Du Cange, Supp., in voce " Plain.") C. H. 



The Ducking-stool (Vol. viii., p. 315.). — As 

 late as the year 1824, a woman was convicted of 

 being a common scold in the Court of Quarter 

 Sessions of Philadelphia County, and sentenced 

 " to be placed in a certain instrument of correction 

 called a cucking or ducking-stool," and plunged 

 three times into the water ; but the Supreme 

 Court of Pennsylvania, upon the removal of the 

 case by writ of error, decided that this punish- 

 ment was obsolete, and contrary to the spirit of 

 the age. 



Our fathers held the ducking-stool in higher 

 respect, as appears from the following present- 

 ments of the grand juries of Philadelphia, the 

 originals of which have been lately discovered. 

 In January, 1717, they say (through William 

 Fishbourne, their foreman), — 



" Whereas it lias been frequently and often presented 

 by several former grand juries for this city, the ne- 

 cessity of a ducking-stool and house of correction for 

 the just punishment of scolding, drunken women, as 

 well as divers other profligate and unruly persons in 

 this place, who are become a public nuisance and dis- 

 turbance to this town in general ; therefore we, the 

 present grand jury, do earnestly again present the same 

 to this court of quarter sessions for the city, desiring 

 their immediate care, that those publick conveniences may 

 not be any longer delayed, but with all possible speed 

 provided for the detection and quieting such disorderly 

 persons." 



Another, the date of which is not given, but 

 which is signed by the same foreman, presents 

 " Alsoe that a ducking-stoole be made for publick 

 use, being very much wanting for scolding wo- 

 men," &c. And in 1720, another grand jury, of 

 which Benjamin Duffield was foreman, say : 



" The Grand Inquest, we taking in consideration 

 the great disorders of the turbulent and ill-behaviour 

 of many people in this city, we present the great ne- 

 cessity of a ducking-stool for such people according to 

 their deserts." 



Uneda. 



Philadelphia. 



Double Christian Names (Vol. ix., p. 45.). — It 

 is surely not correct to say that the earliest in- 

 stance of two Christian names is in the case of a 

 person born in 1635. Surely Henry, Prince of 

 Wales, the son of James I., is an earlier instance. 

 Sir Thomas Strand Fairfax was certainly born 

 before that date. Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey 

 was probably an earlier instance ; and Sir Robert 

 Bruce Colton, the antiquary, certainly so. Writing 

 at a distance from my books, I can only appeal to 

 memory ; but see Southey's Common-place Book, 

 vol. i. p. 510. Venables, in his Travels in Russia, 



