360 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 233. 



sifting and separating the good from the bad is 

 termed garbling : the word being here employed 

 in the very same sense as in the examples quoted 

 by E. S. T. T., illustrative of its original mean- 

 ing, and which sense he erroneously stated it no 

 longer possessed. R. V. T. 



Mincing Lane. 



I cannot agree with your correspondent E. S. 

 T. T., that a corruption of meaning has taken 

 place in this word ; and that whereas it originally 

 meant a selection of the good and a discarding of 

 the bad parts of anything, its present meaning is 

 exactly the reverse of this. Its original signifi- 

 cation is correctly stated : the garbling of spices, 

 drugs, &c, meant the selection of the good and 

 the rejection of the bad. But the garbling of a 

 passage cited as a testimony is a precisely analo- 

 gous process. The person who garbles the pas- 

 sage omits those parts which can be used against 

 his view, and adduces only those parts which sup- 

 port his conclusion. He selects the parts which 

 are good, and rejects those which are bad,/o? - his 

 purpose. When a passage is said to be garbled, 

 it is always implied that the person who quotes it 

 has suppressed a portion which tells against him- 

 self; but that portion is, so far as he is concerned, 

 the bad, not the good portion. The secondary and 

 metaphorical is therefore precisely analogous to 

 the primary and literal sense of the word, and 

 not the reverse of it. L. 



Electric Telegraph (Vol. ix., p. 270.). — As 

 every new attempt to improve this invaluable 

 invention, and to extend its use, is of world-wide 

 importance, the following extract from La Presse, 

 a French newspaper of March 23rd, will excite 

 inquiry : 



" On ecrit de Berne, le 17 Mars, MM. Brunner et 

 Hipp, directeurs des telegraphes electriques de la 

 Suisse, viennent d'inventer un appareil portatif a 

 l'aide duquel, en Pappliquant a un point quelconque 

 des fils telegraphiques, on peut transmettre une 

 depeche. L'essai de cet appareil a ete fait a deux 

 lieues de Berne, dans un lieu oil il n'existe aucune 

 section de telegraphic " 



The writer goes on to say that the experiment 

 had been tested with success on the lines to 

 Zurich, Basle, Geneva, &c. J. Mackay. 



Oxford. 



Butlers "Lives of the Saints" (Vol. viii., p. 387.). 

 — The inquiry respecting the various editions of 

 this valuable work not having yet received any 

 answer, the following information may in some 

 degree satisfy the inquirer. The first edition of 

 the Rev. Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints was 

 published in the author's lifetime, at various in- 

 tervals from 1754 to 1759, when the last of the 

 four volumes appeared, of which the edition was 



composed. Part II. of vol. iii. is now before me, 

 with the date 1758. No other edition appeared 

 till after the death of the learned and pious au- 

 thor, which took place in 1773. 



The second edition was undertaken by the 

 most Kev. Dr. Carpenter, Roman Catholic Arch- 

 bishop of Dublin, and appeared in 12 vols, in 

 1779. It is stated in the title-page to be " cor- 

 rected and enlarged from the author's own MS." 

 It did contain all the notes omitted in the pre- 

 vious edition, and other matter prepared by the 

 author. The third edition was published in 

 Scotland, and other editions followed ; but I am 

 unable to give any particulars of them. But the 

 splendid stereotype edition, published in London 

 by Murphy, in 1812, in 12 vols., is by far the 

 best ever produced, or ever likely to appear. 

 Since this there have been other editions ; one in 

 2 vols., published in Ireland, and a cheap edition 

 in 12 small vols., printed at Derby; but they 

 deserve little notice. F. C. H. 



Anticipatory Use of the Cross (Vol. viii. passim). 

 — In answer to particular inquiry, I have been 

 furnished by a resident in Macao with an answer, 

 of which the following is the substance: — The 

 cross is commonly used in China, and consists of 

 any flat boards of sufficient size, the upright shaft 

 being usually eight to ten feet high. The trans- 

 verse bar is fixed by a single nail or rivet, and is 

 therefore often loose, and may be made sometimes 

 to traverse a complete circle. It is not so much 

 an instrument of punishment in itself, as it is an 

 operation-board whereon to confine the criminal, 

 not with nails, but ropes, to undergo — as in the 

 case of a woman taken in adultery — the cutting 

 away of the flesh from the bosom. He adds, that he 

 has witnessed such punishment, and he has no 

 doubt that the cross has been used in this way in 

 China immemorially. Any of your correspon- 

 dents will much oblige me by correcting or con- 

 firming this statement from positive testimony. 



T. J. Bucktox. 



Lichfield. 



The Marquis of Granby (Vol. ix., p. 127.). — 

 A portrait of this nobleman constitutes the sign of 

 a public-house at Doncaster, and of another at 

 Bawtry, nine miles from that town. His lordship, 

 it is said, occasionally occupied Carr House, near 

 the former place, as a hunting-box in the middle 

 of the last century. As an instance of his lord- 

 ship's popularity, I may here add, that out of 

 compliment to him, and for his greater conveni- 

 ence in hunting, at a period when there was a 

 considerable extent of uninclosed and undrained 

 country around Doncaster, the corporation di- 

 rected several banks and passages to be made on 

 their estate at Rossing-ton ; and in 1752, that body 

 likewise presented the Marquis with the freedom 

 of the borough. C. J. 



