ii s. VIIL OCT. 11, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
287
the two memorials which stand above it.
On the south wall of the nave are the last
two, both to the right of the south door, one
a little higher than the other. The size of
the cross is about 10 inches, and the shape
is a cross patee, small in the centre and
widening out towards the terminals, but
having curved arms, the ends forming a
circle. W. B. GERISH.
- ' MARRIAGE " AS SURNAME. This curi-
osity of nomenclature occurs in the Parish Registers of All Saints' Church, High Roding, Dunmow, Essex, ad an. 1780. The name seems to have been pretty common in that district at that period.
J. B. McGovERN.
St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.
THE GUILDHALL. That interesting little work ' Memoires et Observations Faites par un Voyageur en Angleterre,' a la Haye, 1698, provides the following :
" Guildhall. La Maison qu'on appelle Guild- Hall est proprement ce que nous appellons Maison de Ville ou H6tel de Ville en France. II est a croire que la grande Sale 4toit autrefois dore"e, puh que le mot Guild, ou Gild-Hall, signifie Sale dore."
In a foot-note the author adds :
" D'autres disent que Guild est un ancien mot
qui sigriifie incorpor6 : Guildhall ; la Sale des
incorporez, ou associez."
James Howel is apparently the principal authority for this traveller's identifications and facts, but he is not responsible for " Gild- Hall signifie Sale doree."
ALECK ABRAHAMS.
EXECUTION OF EARL FERRERS, 1760. (See 2 S. iv. 369 ;" 8 S. ix. 308, 349, 435.) The much-debafed question as to whether the rope with which Laurence, Earl Ferrers, was hanged on 5 May, 1760, was of ordinary hemp or silken may now be regarded as settled, if a passage in the recently published
- Memoirs of William Hickey (1749-1775),'
edited by Alfred Spencer, and published by Hurst & Blackett, 1913, be accepted. Hickey, then a boy at Westminster School, thus writes (p. 20) :
" His Lordship being found guilty and sen- tenced to death, Henley and I agreed to attend
the execution, and did so In compliment to
his peerage he was hung by a silk halter, a common
cord being covered with black silk He met
death with fortitude."
' The Story of Ashby-de-la-Zouch,' pub- lished locally, 1907, states on p. 423 that Dr. Kirkland (who attended Johnson, the murdered man, and lived until 1798)
"had a museum of curiosities. .. .including the
bullet he had extracted from Johnson's body and
the rope with which Lord Ferrers was hanged.
These were subsequently given to the next Lord
Ferrers."
W. B. H.
(gmras.
WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct..
" TRANSEPT." The history of this word
is obscure. It occurs in Leland's ' Itine-
rary,' 1538-42 (ed. Miss Toulmin Smith,
1907, iii. 239), in the account of Crediton
Church : " One Sir John Scylley a knight
and his wyfe, sometyme dwelling in that
paroche, be buried in the north transsept
of this." Aiitony Wood, 1692, spelt it
transcept, which is occasional in later writers,
being used even by J. K. Green, or his
printers, in 1879. The term appears to
have arisen in England ; possibly in a
mediaeval or modern Latin form, trans-
septum or transceptum. But examples of
the Latin form have apparently not yet been
reported. Etymologists generally favour a
derivation from L. trans- across + septum
enclosure, which makes a sense of a sort ;
transcept would imply that which is " taken
across " ; some have suggested that it was
an error for transsect or transect, that which
is " cut across," or cross-section. It is
much to be desired that earlier evidence of
the word, either in English or Latin, should
be found. It has passed in the nineteenth
century into French, and (in technical
language) into German. What is it called
in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese ?
J. A. H. MURRAY. Oxford.
NAPOLEON'S ARMY. It has been stated that the stature of the Frenchman before the Napoleonic wars was greater than it is to-day. Can any of your readers tell me whether there is any reliable authority for this statement ?
Did Napoleon fix any min'mum standard of height for his troops ? Was Marshal Soult a tall man ? Disraeli states in ' Coningsby ' that he was of Jewish descent. If this was true, it does not lead one to expect a man above the average height.
G. A. WOODROFFE PHILLIPS.
