Various

“ It is interesting to learn that our colonists keep up this custom of their mother country.
In this parish, the custom has been to ring as quickly after death as the sexton can be found; and the like prevails elsewhere. I have known persons, sensible of their approaching death, direct the bell at once to be tolled.
Durand, in his Rituals of the Roman Church, says: "For expiring persons bells must be tolled, that people may put up their prayers: this must be done twice for a woman, and thrice for a man." ”

“ To understand the cause of the exceeding bitterness and virulence which animated the parties denominated High Church and Low Church, we must remember that until the time of William of Orange, the Church of England, as a body—her sovereigns and bishops, her clergy and laity—comes under the former designation; while those who sympathised with the Dissenters were comparatively few and weak. ”

“ Mayors and Sheriffs.—Can you or any of your readers inform me which ought to be considered the principal officer, or which is the most important, and which ought to have precedence of the other, the mayor of a town or borough, or the sheriff of a town or borough? and is the mayor merely the representative of the town, and the sheriff of the Queen; and if so, ought not the representative of majesty to be considered more honourable than the representative of merely a borough; and can a sheriff of a borough claim to have a grant of arms, if he has not any previous? ”

“ Where Zeale striues to content, and the contents
Dies in the Zeale of that which it presents:
Their forme confounded, makes most forme in mirth
When great things labouring perish in their birth."
Act IV. p. 141. ”

“ CURIOUS CUSTOM OF RINGING BELLS FOR THE DEAD. (Vol. viii., p. 55.)
W. W., alluding to such a custom at Marshfield, Massachusets, asks "if this custom ever did, or does now exist in the mother country?" The curiosity is that your worthy Querist has never heard of it! Dating from Malta, it may be he has never been in our ringing island: for it must be known to every Englishman, that the custom, varying no doubt in different localities, exists in every parish in England. ”

“ Amongst the Scotch families settled in Poland, the principal were the Bonars, who arrived in that country before the Reformation, but became its most zealous adherents. This family rose, by its wealth, and the great merit of several of its members, to the highest dignities of the state, but became extinct during the seventeenth century. There are even now in Poland many families of Scotch descent belonging to the class of nobles ”

“ In those days religion was politics, and politics religion, with most of the belligerents. Swift, however, as if he wished to be thought an exception to the general rule, chose one party for its politics and the other for its religion.
"Swift carried into the ranks of the Whigs the opinions and scruples of a High Church clergyman... Such a distinction between opinions in Church and State has not frequently existed: the High Churchmen being usually Tories, and the Low Church divines universally Whigs."—Scott's Life, 2nd edit.: Edin. ”

“ Words like contents are by no means rare in English. We have tidings and news, both singular and plural. Mr. Collier himself rebukes Malone for his ignorance of such usage of the latter word. If it be said that these two examples have no singular form, whereas contents has, there is means, at any rate precisely analogous. On the other hand, so capricious is language, in defiance of the logic of thought, we have, if I may so term it, a merely auricular plural, in the word corpse referred to a single carcase. ”

“ A writer in a High Church periodical of 1717 (prefacing his article with the passage from Proverbs vi. 27.) proceeds:
"The old way of attacking the Church of England was by mobs and bullies, and hard sounds; by calling Whore, and Babylon, upon our worship and liturgy, and kicking out our clergy as dumb dogs: but now they have other irons in the fire; a new engine is set up under the cloak and disguise of temper, unity, comprehension, and the Protestant religion. ”

“ If the reader wants more examples, let him give himself the trouble to open the first book that comes to hand, and I dare say the perusal of a dozen pages will supply some; yet have we two editors of Shakspeare, Johnson and Collier, so unacquainted with the usage of their own tongue, and the universal logic of thought, as not to know that a word like contents, according as it is understood collectively or distributively, may be, and, as we have just seen, in fact is, treated as a singular or plural ”

“ But if the superstition of our ancestors did not originate in this imaginary virtue, while they preserved the practice, it is certain they believed the mere noise had the same effect; and as, according to their ideas, evil spirits were always hovering around to make a prey of departing souls, the tolling of bells struck them with terror. We may trace the practice of tolling bells during funerals to the like source. This has been practised from times of great antiquity: the bells being muffled, for the sake of greater solemnity, in the same way as drums are muffled at military funerals. ”

“ We apprehend, however, that the old proverb, "You must cut your coat according to your cloth," is most especially applicable to our querist, for not only must the house be constructed according to the advantages afforded by the locality, but the amount of expense will be very differently thought of by different persons: one will be content with any moderate arrangement which will answer the purpose, where another will be scarcely satisfied unless everything is quite of an orné character. ”

“ In taking portraits, if you are not an adept in obtaining a focus, cut a slip of newspaper about four inches long, and one and a half wide, and turn up one end so as it may be held between the lips, taking care that the rest be presented quite flat to the camera ”

“ In his quaint Argument against abolishing Christianity, Lond. 1708, the following passage occurs:
"There is one advantage, greater than any of the foregoing, proposed by the abolishing of Christianity: that it will utterly extinguish parties among us by removing those factious distinctions of High and Low Church, of Whig and Tory, Presbyterian and Church of England."
Scott says of the Tale of a Tub:
"The main purpose is to trace the gradual corruptions of the Church of Rome, and to exalt the English Reformed Church at the expense both of the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian establishments. ”

“ Is it dangerous to use the Ammonio-Nitrate of Silver?—Some time ago I made a few ounces of a solution of ammonio-nitrate of silver for printing positives; this I have kept in a yellow coloured glass bottle with a ground stopper.
I have, however, been much alarmed, and refrained from using it or taking out the stopper, lest danger should arise, in consequence of reading in Mr. Delamotte's Practice of Photography, p. 95. (vide "Ammonia Solution") :
"If any of the ammonio-nitrate dries round the stopper of the bottle in which it is kept, the least friction will cause it to explode violently ”

“ I shall now give a few extracts from Low Church writers (quoted in The Scourge) , who thus designate their opponents:
"A pack or party of scandalous, wicked, and profane men, who appropriate to themselves the name of High Church (but may more properly be said to be Jesuits or Papists in masquerade) , do take liberty to teach, preach, and print, publickly and privately, sedition, contentions, and divisions among the Protestants of this kingdom."—Motives to Union, p. 1. ”

“ The figure of Thor's hammer was held in the utmost reverence by his followers, who were called the children of Thor, who in the last day would save themselves by his mighty hammer. The fiery cross, so well known by Scott's vivid description, was originally the hammer of Thor, which in early Pagan, as in later Christian times, was used as a summons to convene the people either to council or to war. ”

“ As the enemy were known to have assembled in great force at the Camp de Cæsar, near Cambray, Prince Cobourg requested the Duke of York would make a reconnoissance in that direction: accordingly, on the evening of the 23rd, Major-General Mansel's brigade of heavy cavalry was ordered about a league in front of their camp, where they lay that night at a farm-house, forming part of a detachment under General Otto. ”

“ About the end of the last century I was in the habit of collecting a few of the common garden snails from the fruit-trees, and taking them every morning to a lady who was in a delicate state of health; she took them boiled or stewed, or cooked in some manner with milk, making a mucilaginous drink.
E. H.
I have somewhere read of the introduction of a foreign breed of snails into Cambridgeshire, I forget the exact locality, for the table of the monks who imported them ”

“ Paul will scarce escape being censured for Tories and Highflyers."—The Entertainer, Lond. 1717.
"If those who have kept their first love, and whose robes have not been defiled, endeavour to stop these innovations and corruptions that their enemies would introduce, they are blackened for High Church Papists, favourers of I know not who, and fall under the public resentment."—Ib. p. 301. ”

“ In the construction of a photographic house, we beg to inform our correspondent that it is by no means needful to use entirely violet-coloured glass, but the roof thereof exposed to the rays of the sun should be so protected ”

“ On this point a cotemporary remarks, "Some steps have been made, and large ones too, towards a Scotch reformation, by suspending and ejecting the chief and most zealous of our bishops, and others of the higher clergy; and by advancing, upon all vacancies of sees and dignities, ecclesiastical men of notoriously Presbyterian, or, which is worse, of Erastian principles. These are the ministerial ways of undermining Episcopacy; and when to the seven notorious ones shall be added more, upon the approaching deprivation, they will make a majority ”

“ Several other quotations might be adduced (vid. Brand's Antiq., vol. ii. pp. 203, 204. from which much of the above has been derived) to show that "one short peal" was ordered only to be rung after the Reformation: the custom of signifying the sex of the deceased by a certain number of knells must be a relic, therefore, of very ancient usage, and unauthorised by the Church. ”

“ A collodion, however, with thirty-five per cent. of spirits of wine, is very quick, allowing from its less tenacious quality a more rapid action of the nitrate of silver bath.
4th. Cyanide of potassium has been used to re-dissolve the iodide of silver, but the results are by no means so satisfactory; the cost of pure iodide of potassium bought at a proper market is certainly very inconsiderable compared to the disappointment resulting from a false economy.
H. W. Diamond.
Surrey County Asylum. ”

“ Its affection for persons is, indeed, more like that of a dog than of a cat. It is a half-bred Persian cat, and its eyes are perfectly blue, with round pupils, not elongated as those of cats usually are. ”

“ Having ascertained this, take a chess-board, and place the pieces on the row of squares which run {134}from corner to corner; focus the middle one, whether it be king, queen, or knight, and take a picture; you will soon see whether the one best in the visual focus is the best on the picture, or whether the piece one or more squares in advance or behind it is clearer than the one you had previously in focus. The chess-board must be set square with the camera, so that each piece is farther off by one square. ”

“ OTTEWILL'S REGISTERED DOUBLE-BODIED FOLDING CAMERA, is superior to every other form of Camera, for the Photographic Tourist, from its capability of Elongation or Contraction to any Focal Adjustment, its extreme Portability, and its adaptation for taking either Views or Portraits. ”

“ Ten days before and ten days after each fair-day, a hand is exhibited in front of the Town-hall, which denotes protection; during which time no person coming to or going from the town on business connected with the fair can be arrested for debt within its liberty. ”

“ Dr. Andrée proceeds to relate that the information respecting table-moving was communicated in a letter, brought through that ship, from a native of Bremen, residing in New York, to his sister, who was living in Bremen, and who, in her correspondence with her brother, had been rallying him about the American spirit-rappings, and other Yankee humbug, as she styled it, so rampant in the United States. Her brother instanced this table-moving, performed in America, as no delusion, but as a fact, which might be verified by any one ”

“ Cure, No. 180:—"Twenty-five years' nervousness, constipation, indigestion, and debility, from which I had suffered great misery, and which no medicine could remove or relieve, have been effectually cured by Du Barry's food in a very short time.—W. R. Reeves, Pool Anthony, Tiverton."
Cure, No. 4,208:—"Eight years' dyspepsia, nervousness, debility, with cramps, spasms, and nausea, for which my servant had consulted the advice of many, have been effectually removed by Du Barry's delicious food in a very short time. ”

“ It is particularly useful in confined habit of body, as also diarrhœa, bowel complaints, affections of the kidneys and bladder, such as stone or gravel; inflammatory irritation and cramp of the urethra, cramp of the kidneys and bladder, strictures, and hemorrhoids. ”

“ This custom of three tolls for a man, and two for a woman, is thus explained in an ancient Homily on Trinity Sunday:—"At the deth of a manne, three bells should be ronge as his knyll in worship of the Trinitie. And for a woman, who was the second person of the Trinitie, two bells should be ronge."
WHO FIRST THOUGHT OF TABLE-TURNING? (Vol. viii., p. 57.)
Respecting the origin of this curious phenomenon in America, I am not able to give your correspondent, J. G. T. of Hagley, any information ”

“ James' Church, Hull, on the occurrence of a death in the parish, a bell is tolled quickly for about the space of ten minutes; and before ceasing, nine knells given if the deceased be a man, six if a woman, and three if a child. As far as I have been able to ascertain, the custom is now almost peculiar to the north of England; but in ancient times it must have been very general according to Durandus, who has the following in his Rationale, lib. i. cap. 4. 13.:
"Verum aliquo moriente, campanæ debent pulsari ”

“ A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC. "When found, make a note of."—CAPTAIN CUTTLE. CONTENTS. Notes. HIGH CHURCH AND LOW CHURCH.
A Universal History of Party; with the Origin of Party Names [1] would form an acceptable addition to literary history: "N. & Q." has contributed towards such a work some disquisitions on our party names Whig and Tory, and The Good Old Cause. ”

“ A Narrative of Practical Experiments proving to Demonstration the Discovery of Water, Coals, and Minerals in the Earth by means of the Dowsing Fork or Divining Rod, &c., collected, reported, and edited by Francis Phippen. A curious little pamphlet on a fact in Natural Philosophy, which we believe no philosopher can either understand or account for. ”

“ Dr. Diamond's Replies.—I am sorry I have not before replied to the Queries of your correspondent W. F. E., contained in Vol. viii., p. 41.; but absence from home, together with a pressure of public duties here, has prevented me from so doing.
1st. No doubt a small portion of nitrate of potash is formed when the iodized collodion is immersed in the bath of nitrate of silver, by mutual decomposition; but it is in so small a quantity as not to deteriorate the bath.
2nd. I believe collodion will keep good much longer than is generally supposed ”

“ But the names were not coined till the close of the seventeenth century, and were not stamped in full relief as party-names till the first year of Queen Anne's reign.
In October, 1702, Anne's first Parliament and Convocation assembled:
"From the deputies in Convocation at this period, the appellations High Church and Low Church originated, and they were afterwards used to distinguish the clergy. It is singular that the bishops [3] were ranked among {118}the Low Churchmen (see Burnet, v. 138.; Calamy, i. 643.; Tindal's Cont., iv. 591.) "—Lathbury's Hist. of the Convocation, Lond. ”