128. 1. APRIL 29, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
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collection of celebrated naval officers at Greenwich Hospital. He represented Rochester in Parliament in 1731, and again in 1741. An account of the Haddock family is given in 'Historical Notes on Southend-on-Sea,' &c., by J. W. Burrows (pp. 82-91).
G. H. W.
Tigers' Whiskers (US. xii. 481; 12 S. I. 37, 118, 234).—In the article 'Tiger' in Balfour's 'The Cyclopedia of India,' 1885, vol. ii. p. 878, naming for references only four authorities (Brown's 'Cochin-China,' Jerdon, Blyth, Rice), we read thus:—
"The whiskers are supposed to constitute a deadly poison, and are carefully burned off the instant the animal is killed; but in some parts of the south of India they are supposed to endow their possessor with unlimited power over the opposite sex."
"Aussitôt qu'un tigre a été tué on s'empresse de lui brûler tous les polls de la moustache. L'on a peur que quelque malintentionné ne prenne ces poils pour en composer des poisons. Ces poisons sont de deux sortes, le plus simple et le moins redoutable est la cendre même des poils: elle fait tousser, mais ne paraît pas mortelle. Quand on veut obtenir un poison mortel, on insère un de ces poils dans une pousse de bambou. Le poil se transforme en une espèce de chenille velue dont on prend, suivant les uns les poils, suivant les autres les excrements, que l'on brûle et que l'on fait boire à son ennemi."—Landes, 'Notes sur les Mœurs et les Superstitions des Annamites,' in 'Cochinchine Française, Excursions et Reconnaissances,' vol. i. No. 8, p. 356, Saigon, 1881.
"Ching Sze-Yuen, a Tauist sage, made it his custom to go on a tiger's back. On being asked by his friend Kü Yin how to cure his toothache, Ching instructed him to warm a tiger's whiskers and insert them in the hollow of the afflicting tooth, giving him some whiskers just plucked from his tiger. Thus it became known "that the tiger's whiskers make up a very excellent odontalgic."—Twan Ching-Shih, 'Yû-yang-tsah-tsu,' written in the ninth century, torn. xvi.
Tanabe, Kii, Japan.
JAMES SCOTT, ENGRAVER (12 S. i. 248).
The place of his birth is not definitely known,
but it is believed to be London. The year of
his birth is 1809. His name and those of E.
Scott and B. F. Scott are often met with on
prints. James Scott's sporting subjects and
portraits are of considerably greater merit
than his domestic prints.
He executed six plates after Prentis, viz., "* The Prodigal's Return,' 18 in. by 23 in., published 1840; 'A Day's Pleasure,' 18 in. by 23 in.; 'The Man,' 'The Spirit,' both 14 in. by 11 J in., published 1845; 'Family Devotion, Morning,' ' Evening,' both 21 in. by 26 in.
The rarest of his engravings are : ' Boys
Bathing ' and ' Boys robbing an Orchard,'
both after Morland ; ' Breaking Cover,'
' The Death,' both after Reinagle ; ' The
Age of Bliss,' after John Russell.
ARCHIBALD SPARKE.
" FAT, FAIR, AND FORTY" (12 S. i. 10, 53, 97). The witticism attributed to Douglas Jerrold about exchanging a wife of 40 for two of 20 is at least as old as ' Der Pfarrer von Kalenberg,' which belongs probably to the end of the fifteenth century, and was trans- lated and adapted to English ideas about 1510. There a loose-living parson, being required to replace his youthful housekeeper with a woman of 40, chooses as her equiva- lent " two of 20." See Herford,' Literary Rela- tions of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century,' p. 275. MALCOLM LETTS.
FUNERAL BISCUITS (12 S. i. 247). It was usual for wine to be provided for guests who came to a house in order to go with the family to a funeral. With the wine, cake, biscuits, &c., were served, and the biscuits were often about three inches long by one inch broad, and were also called " finger biscuits," either from their general form or from being easily held in the fingers. Several years ago, the late Canon William Fowler, Vicar of Liversedge, Yorkshire, went to see a parishioner who had been dangerously ill and was thought to be dying. The Vicar found the sick man sitting up in bed and munching away at something with apparent relish, so congratulated him on being so much better and able to enjoy food :
" Why, you see, Mr. Fowler [said he], my wife she thought I were baan to dee [going to die], an' I thought I worrant. However, she gate [got] a few fewneril biscuits like, an' I'm heitin* 'em."
" Like " is used as a sort of expletive with no definite meaning. J. T. F.
These biscuits, done up in packets with a small sheet of verses, were given to all the guests invited to funerals in Derbyshire villages seventy years ago. After a death, in all but the poorest houses, when the laying-out woman had performed her offices, she was sent to do the " biddening " to the funeral of relations and near friends. Her next duty was to order the funeral biscuits at the confectioner's as many packets as there had been biddings, as well as a quantity of loose biscuits which, from their shape, were also known as " finger biscuits." The loose ones were set out in the middle of