346
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. H. OCT. 29, ion.
the leaded article of Wednesday's Times,'
and some lines are appended, two of which
ran :
In style sublime to make a wondrous clatter, And with opake ideas to shine in leaded matter. It is interesting to note that so lately as 10 August, 1886, the Pall Mall Gazette alluded to "the leaded articles penned in Fleet Street " ; but it is to be observed that in the Times of the same year as the quotation already given from the Oracle appeared a satirical offer from an imaginary political Scotchman to write " leading paragraphs for newspapers " (' The Spirit of the Public Journals for 1804,' p. 10).
ALFEED F. BOBBINS.
CHILDREN AT EXECUTIONS. Some eleven years ago (8 th S. iv. 404) I contributed to
- N. & Q.' two examples of school children
being sent to witness public executions. The instances I gave related to Lincoln. I have recently encountered a French example. At Orange, during the Terror, many so-called political executions took place. A writer in the Dublin Review for July last tells us that there the guillotine
- ' stood on a raised platform, which was adorned
with flags as if for a national festival. Around it gathered a dense crowd, in the midst of which might have been recognized, from their troubled countenances and evident anxiety to avoid notice, the relations and friends of those who were about to die. Children were there, too, for the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses of the town had orders to take their pupils to witness the executions. Some years ago there were still old people living at Orange who remembered how, in their youth, they had been present at the ghastly spectacle ! "P. 67.
EDWARD PEACOCK.
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 the answers may be addressed to them
direct.
BIGGS OR BYGGES FAMILY, WORCESTER- SHIRE. Will any reader help us to trace a missing link in the pedigree of the family of Biggs or Bygges of Worcestershire ?
We particularly want to trace the birth of the first Thomas Biggs, of Pedmore, near Stourbridge, who in his marriage bond, dated 18 July, 1737, described himself as of Stour- bridge, in the parish of Old Swinford, and about thirty-seven years of age. We have not, however, been able to find the birth of any Thomas Biggs during the years 1699- 1701.
It has always been believed that our family
is descended from the same branch as that of
Sir Thomas Bigg (or Bygges), knight baronet,
of Norton and Lenchwick, near Evesham,
who died in 1621, and whose arms and crest
we have always borne, though the latter
now shows the hand grasping the serpent in
the middle, instead of enwrapping, as his
used to do. Our arms are Argent, on a fesse,
between three martlets sable, as many
annulets or.
As Sir Thomas Bigg died without children, and his sister's children were the next of kin, our family is most probably descended from the children of his uncle, Philip Bigge (or Bygges), of Aldington, who died at Evesham in 1640 and had four or five sons, as follows : Gabriel, b. 1587, d. 1615 ; Uriel (?), name not distinguishable, b. 1593 ; Thomas, b. 1602 ; Henry, b. 1603. There was also a Will. Biggs, married to Joan Tome, of Quinton, in 1622, who is believed to have been another son.
All traces of them appear to have vanished after this, probably because the family fought for King Charles and lost all their property, and so possibly descended in the social scale, rising again when they came to Pedmore about 1730-40, or earlier, as we have crested silver dated 1713. We particularly want to find the connecting links between these two families.
There are some very handsome tombs in the Biggs Chapel at Norton Church, near Evesham. Please reply direct.
(Major) H. VERO BIGGS, D.S.O., R.E. C/o Capt. Sherwill, Powick, nr. Worcester.
BAROMETER BY MARINONE & Co. Can any correspondent give me information as to the date of a barometer by the above firm ?
J. HARRISON.
CAPE BAR MEN. In 1806 Lord St. Vincent, then in command of the Channel Fleet, wrote of a brother officer, in perhaps exaggerated language : " He is the meanest thief in the whole profession, abounding as it still does with Cape Bar men." Can any one explain this ? What or who were Cape Bar men ? J. K. LAUGHTON.
Louis XIV.'s HEART. In view of the recent death of Sir William Harcourt at; tSTuneham the following excerpts from Sir M. E. Grant Duff's ' Notes from a Diary ' are doubly interesting. Under date 6 October, 1893, the diarist writes :
'I mentioned as an instance of the way in which stories get altered, that a friend wrote to me the other day that she had heard it said that Max Miiller had swallowed the heart of Louis XIV. [ was able to reply to her that the story had
