2««S. IX Mar. IT. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



207 



Baisels of Baize (2 nd S. ix. 25. 90. 150.) — 

 I have not the intention of disputing the answer 

 of your correspondent to Me. Pishey Thompson's 

 Query, but I beg to point out that Wharton's Law 

 Lexicon (ed. 1848), says that, "Basels" (were) 

 " coins abolished by Henry II., 1158," and I think 

 it highly probable that they may have become so 

 deba ? ed as to be made of " baize " or some other 

 worthless material ; which, indeed, may have been 

 the cause of their abolition. 



As I have not been able to meet with any other 

 notice of these extinct coins, I should be glad if 

 iyou would open the columns of " N. & Q." to 

 numismatic antiquaries, for information as to the 

 description and value, &c. of " basels." Wigtoft. 



The Prussian Iron Medal (2 nd S. ix. 130.) — 

 I have the pleasure to inform Vedette that the 

 (title in full of the work quoted by me in " N. & Q." 

 i(2' d S. ix. 91.) is as follows — the copy before me 

 being a Belgian reprint of the Paris edition of 

 '1831-7: — 



| " Memoires tires des Papiers d'un Homme d'Etat sui- 

 tes Causes Secretes qui ont determines la Politique des 

 Cabinets dans les Guerres de la Revolution. Bruxelles, 

 ( 1838." 



The abridged form of title given by me at the 

 iplace in your columns above referred to, is cer- 

 tainly not precisely accurate, but is so much in 

 licouimon u;e, that it did not occur to me that it 

 ;!inight be misunderstood. For instances of this, I 

 may cite Sir A. Alison's History of Europe from 

 the Commencement of the Fi'ench Revolutionise., 

 edit. 1849-50 (vol. i. p. xxxviii.), as also the 

 Catalogue of the London Library, &c. 



The authorship is attributed to Count d'Allon- 

 nlle, he having published a work entitled : 



" Memoires Secretes de 1770 h, 1850, par M. le Comte 

 l'AUonville, auteur des Memoires tire's des Papiers d'un 

 Homme d'Etat." 



A full account of M. le Comte d'AUonville's 

 Works will be found under his name in M. Que- 

 rard's La Liltirature Franqaise Contemporaine. 

 As to the works themselves, I cannot find the 

 Memoires tires des Papiers d'un Homme d'Etat in 

 the Catalogues of the British Museum. Vedette, 

 however, will meet with a copy at the London 

 Library, 12. St. James's Square, S.YV". Z. 



IIohnbooks (2 nd S. ix. 101.) — There is, or 

 was a few years ago, a most interesting stained 

 ^lass window in All Saints', North Street, York, 

 at the east end, over the communion table. It 

 bad been grievously mutilated, but the remains 

 rt-ere very beautiful. It represented St. Anne 

 teaching the Virgin to read out of a hornbook with 

 i pointer. Parts of this group had been patched 

 ■villi pi'-ces from other windows, so that at first 

 there was some difficulty in making out the 

 subject ; but the hornbook was entire as well as 

 .he figure of the Virgin, a lovely little girl, with 



golden hair, and crowned with a wreath of lilies. 

 I should imagine that it was the work of the 15th 

 century. I take this opportunity of calling the 

 attention of archaeologists to the stained glass 

 windows still existing in many of the York 

 churches. They are interesting as illustrating the 

 manners, costumes, and customs of the middle 

 ages — and some of them possess a beauty of 

 design and expression, (particularly those in St. 

 Denis, ^Valmgate,) that would bear comparison 

 with the Pre-Raffaelites of the continent. M. G. 



A very interesting paper on this subject, with 

 woodcut illustrations, may be found in Willis's 

 Current Notes for October, 1855. Eirionnach. 



Cut tour Stick (2 nd S. viii. 413. 478. ; ix. 53.) 

 — The conjectures lately made in "N. & Q." as 

 to this phrase are altogether erroneous. It ori- 

 ginated as follows : — 



About the year 1820 a song was sung in the 

 Saltmarket, Glasgow, beginning 



" Oh I creished my brogues and I cut my stick," 



being the adventures of an Irishman, in which of 

 course the cutting of the stick referred to the 

 common practice in Ireland of procuring a sap- 

 ling before going off. An impression exists that 

 the author of the song was Harrison, a Glasgow 

 poet, who wrote many very beautiful verses at 

 that date, but I can find no positive evidence that 

 Harrison was the author. It afterwards came to 

 be the practice, when any one ran off or ab- 

 sconded, to say, that chap has cut his stick too, 

 and thus the phrase originated and spread over 

 the country. 



Of course every one knews that the phrase as 

 now used does not mean the actual cutting a stick, 

 as it did at and before the date of the song ; but 

 the decampment, or exit, or flight, or whatever it 

 may be called (with or without a stick) of those 

 who take to their heels, or quit people's presence 

 ignominiously. Civis. 



Glasgow. 



The Nine Men's Morris (2 nd S. ix. 97.)— The 

 latter part of the quotation from M. Chabaille, — 

 "On nomme aussi morelle un autre jeu d'enfants, 

 ou les joueurs poussent a cloche-pied un petit palet 

 dans chaque carre d'une espece d'echelle tracee 

 sur le terrain," — seems an exact description of 

 the game called pal-al, so much practised at this 

 day by little girls. A few of them having met at 

 some quiet place of the street pavement, they may 

 be seen, with a piece of chalk, laying off upon it a 

 number of squares or beds, marking each in the 

 centre with a rude hieroglyphic of their own. 

 Under particular regulations settled on, the hop- 

 ping commences from one end to the other of the 

 squares by the player, driving before her foot the 

 palet, or peevor (as it is termed), she being spe- 

 cially superintended by the rest of the groupe to 



