12 s.x. APRIL is, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 289 in the sixteenth century Fortune Gate (Willesden) was well known. J. STOBART GREENHALGH. 7, Turner's Wood, X.W.ll. MURDERS IN ITALY. Farington, in his Diary, Dec. 16, 1795, says that Flaxman assured him that in Rome one of the Pope's secretaries told him that on an average 1,500 persons are murdered annually in the papal dominions. From the reports which were made, it appeared that in 20 years of the present Pope's reign 30,000 persons had been murdered. Whereas in Tuscany, the adjoining state, not one, or but one, person had been murdered in the same length of time. Those murders are confined to almost the lowest order of the people, and are regarded with great indifference. What could be the cause of such a difference ? Would the practice or disuse of capital punishment have anything to do with it, or laxer teaching on morality and the sanctity of life, or what ? W. DOUGLAS. 31, Sandwich Street, W-C.1. FRANKLIN. Can anyone tell me who were the parents and grandparents of Henry Franklin of Kingston, Jamaica, attorney-at-law, believed born 1811, died November, 1857, buried in New Ground, Kingston, Jamaica, Nov. 8, 1857. He had an aunt, Mrs. Grace Blundell, who left him Blundell Hall and land in Kingston. He is said to have been son of James F. and grandson of John F., who married Margaret (called Sarah) Blake, a descendant of a brother of Admiral Blake (arms, Argent, a chevron between three garbs sable). John F. had an armorial seal, apparently meant to be the arms of Franklin of Maid- stone, Kent (Visitation of Kent, 1573-5, and Ped. Coll. of Arms ; arms, Gules, on a bend between two dolphins hauriant or, three lions' heads erased of the field), and it is suggested that John F. was descended from, or a relative of, these Maidstone Franklins, whose pedigree I have from 1500- 1834, some of whom were certainly in and associated with Jamaica, Tobago, St. Kitts, &c., from 1760 to at any rate 1811. Henry F. married Elizabeth Williams, who died 1867, buried Kensal- Green, London, by whom he had three sons : James, a Captain in the Royals ; Henry ; and Charles, M.R.C.S., who practised at Ingatestone and Putney ; and three daughters : Alice, Emily and Julia. In 1894 W. S. G. Richards compiled a Franklin pedigree, which has been found . to be in need of some correction. Does anyone know whether Mr. Richards is still living ? Henry F. was apparently not admitted a solicitor in England, so was presumably in Jamaica, where he practised many years. It is, then, probable that he was born out there. So far as I can. learn, these Maidstone people were going strong so late as 1836, when Gilbert William F. (son of John Gilbert, grandson of Gilbert and great- | grandson of Walter F. of Mereworth Castle, Kent) was a Lieutenant in the 37th Regi- ment, and he had a cousin, Henry F., son of Henry F. and grandson of Gilbert F. Gilbert F. had a brother, Peter, collector of H.M. Customs, Kingston, Jamaica, ! member of the Legislative Assembly and of the Privy Council of Tobago. Is anything known of these two, Henry and Gilbert William, and whether they had issue male ? I wonder if any reader has a recent copy | of Fox-Davies's ' Armorial Families * to dispose of at a reasonable figure ? C. A. H. FRANKLIN. St. Thomas's Hospital, S.E.I. ' PETER SIMPLE': NAVAL SLANG. In ' Peter Simple,' Swinburne, the Quarter- master, in telling Peter about the Battle of St. Vincent, says, "... Troubridge opened the ball, setting to half a dozen of the Spaniards and making them reel ' Tom Collins, whether or no.' 5: Was ' Tom Collins, &c.,' the name of a dance, a reel, i or was it Navy slang for involuntary com- pulsion. JOHN LECKY. [See also Notices to Correspondents.] LOFTUS. I shall be obliged for informa- tion showing the relationship of Lady Elizabeth Loftus (daughter of the first Marquis Townshend by his first marriage), who died in Wimpole Street, March 21, 1811, and of George Colby Loftus, who married Mrs. Schuyler of Woollands in Dorset and died about 1851. Was he her son ? CHRISTOPHER STONE. Peppers, near Steyning, Sussex. JAMES ATKINSON. M.D., medical officer in India and Persian scholar. Is said in the ' D.N.B.' to have been born in the north of England, March 9, 1780, and to have died Aug. 7, 1852. Can anyone gives the names of places of birth and death ? W. N. C.
