ESSEX COUNTY DIALECT. 173 



And no w we can stick more closely to our point ; — 

 my first specimen of dialect, (as I suppose it to be), serv- 

 ing to bind the two parts togetlier. 



In the year 1714 the inhabitants of Salem petition for 

 help in manning a fort, because, they say, they "havecon- 

 siderable Lott and Scott in carrying on the government." 1 



In 1687 Gloucester, petitioning against abuses under 

 Andros, complains she has to " pay the Shottiov the Jus- 

 tices at the Tavern." 



In Van Lennep's "Tales of our Ancestors " (Dutch), a 

 crusader says, " it is hard on free Citizens who have always 

 paicl schot and lot, to be bandied from one master to an- 

 other," etc. 2 



Note. Seh. hard in Dutch, soft in Gernfan; so that the German rendering 

 would he Shot, and the Dutch Sept. 



I do not know if scot and lot has been in use in England, 

 but scot-free seenis to belong to it. The same volume con- 

 tains "donderkoppen," the thunder-heads of New Eng- 

 land ; and " schmerzengeld," corresponding to the smart 

 money sonietinies allowed by General Court to wounded 

 Indian-hghters. Other phrases I neglected to mark : — one 

 is always sorry later for an Omission of that kind. 



About eighteen months ago the Secretary of the Dialect 

 Society wrote a letter to the New York Nation, and 

 spoke of vvantiug reports from "hill-towns vvhere the pop- 

 ulation had remained stähle, preserving their habits of 

 speech intact." They ran about like ants on their way to 

 the hill-towns, however, as the genealogist soon discovers. 

 It is a task to follow the course of a family from Concord 

 or Watertovvn, through Sudbury, Grafton, Framingham, 

 Chelmsford, (picking up wives all the way), to a New 

 Hampshire hill-town where it may joiu another Concord 



iEssex Institute Collections, vol. v, p. 259. 

 2 " De Reisgeuooten," pp- 244, 345. 



ESSEX INST. BULLETIN VOL. XX\ I 21 



