ii s. iv. AUG. 26, ion.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
167
also chastely encased in white. Perhaps
it was not until the present Queen -Mother
blessed our shores that black hose came
into general favour ; at this time all kinds
of hues are exhibited, and I do not know
whether the fair sex, or the other, makes
the more brilliant show of footgear. As
regards " golden lads " I am tempted to
parody Suckling :
Their feet beyond the trousers' verge
Upturned like butterflies emerge, All eager for the light ;
And oh, they are so crudely gay !
No harlequin on Boxing Day Is half so strange a sight.
And yet I learn from The Daily Sketch (31 July) that King George V. is contenting himself with black socks, which the para- graph-writer assures me are of good quality.
ST. "
" WARE AND WADESMILL : WORTH HALF
LONDON." This expression, of unknown
age, always seems to be inaccurate in its
allusion to the second place Wadesmill.
Should it not run " Ware and Westmill :
worth half London " ? Wadesmill can never
have been a place of any size or importance,
besides being in the adjoining parish of Thun-
dridge, whereas Westmill was the hamlet of
Ware, and would naturally fall into the
saying.
As I have stated, the date of its origin is unknown, but I scarcely think it is of any high antiquity. The popular opinion is that it is derived from the story told of Saher de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, who lived in the reign of John. He is stated to have resided at Ware Park, and taking an in- terest in the town as a landowner, he observed that a massive padlocked iron chain was placed across the bridge over the Lea, in order that traffic might be diverted through Hertford, the Bailiff of which town held the keys, and received the tolls, valued at 10?. 13^. 4d. per annum. Saher freed tra- vellers from this exaction by the simple process of breaking the chain, and thus made Ware a great thoroughfare and brought much trade to the town.
Even in the troublous reign of John, when might frequently passed for right, such a flagrant violation of the privilege of the adjoining borough, and loss to its revenue, can scarcely have passed unchallenged.
rather doubt whether the story will bear investigation; but, if its truth is assumed, the point of interest is : Did this action make Ware so prosperous as to give rise to the saying ? I think not. I find that during the Tudor and Stuart periods
many travellers spent the night at Ware
on their journeys to London, but this,
while a source of considerable profit, would
scarcely so enrich the town as to make it
remarkable for its wealth. I think that
what made Ware a town of prosperous
merchants was the malting industry, which
seems to have attained to the zenith of its
prosperity about a century ago. But for
some three centuries the maltsters did well.
No other town possessed such a number of
extensive meltings, and the profits in olden
times were very large. It is reasonable,
therefore, to assume that the saying arose
some time in the seventeenth century,
probably in the first half of that period.
W. B. GERISH. Bishop's Stortford.
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.
THIRTEENTH. Under this word as sb. the (American) ' Century Dictionary ' has "1. One of thirteen equal parts into which anything is divided. 2. In early Eng. law, a thirteenth part of the rents of the year or of movables, or both, granted or levied by way of tax." No examples of this sense 2 have come under our notice. Were thirteenths ever actually levied ? Where are they mentioned ?
J. A. H. MURRAY. Oxford.
BARRY O'MEARA, NAPOLEON'S SURGEON AT ST. HELENA. I should be very much obliged if any of your readers could give me some particulars of the father of Barry O'Meara, who was surgeon to Napoleon at St. Helena. ST. PATRICK.
Peking.
F. W. NEWMAN'S ' PAUL OF TARSUS.' Writing, towards the end of his life, to Anna Swanwick, Francis William Newman ex- presses himself thus : " If I live through this year, I hope to effect, by aid of a friend's eyes, a third .... edition of my ' Paul of Tarsus.' ' This sentence is quoted as "from Miss Bruce's 'Memoir of Recollec- tions of Anna Swanwick'" on p. 343 of ' Memoir and Letters of Francis W. New- man,' by I. Gib erne Sieveking (London, 1909), Did the fore - shadowed " Third
