12 S.X.JUNE 24, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 489 but soon these were merged and became the London centre of the Comptoir d'Escompte or some insurance office. The semicircular range of columns in the interior suggested its original purpose as a j hall of commerce. ALECK ABRAHAMS. JOHN STOW AND THE NEW RIVER. In ' Lives of the Engineers,' by Samuel Smiles (1862), vol. i., p. 113, it is stated that Stowi records in his 'Survey' (ed. 1633) that he| himself rode down divers times to see the I progress made in the cutting and construct- j ing the New River, and " diligently observed that admirable art, pains and industry were bestowed for the passage of it," &c. Such was not the fact. Stow's ' Survay of London ' was first published in 1598. Stow died in 1605, as recorded on his monument (just restored) in the Church of St. Andrew Undershaft, but the construction of the New River was not begun until about four years after his death. It was opened with considerable ceremony in 1613. Stow's literary executor was, according to j the ' D.N.Bi.,' Anthony Muiiday, and hej published, in 1618, an edition of Stow's I ' Survay of London.' Stow's ' Survey ' dated 1633 was a later edition, presumably also by Munday. He therefore was probably j the author of the words attributed by Smiles to John Stow. W. M. MYDDELTON. Woodhall Spa. (Queried 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. " Qui STREPIT IN CAMPO." An Oxford undergraduate, writing Aug. 3, 1695, men- tions a horse-race in Port Meadow, where a great many scholars were gathered, on the previous Thursday, July 28. "The undergraduates of our house," he writes, " were all welcomed home with an imposi- tion of forty lines " ; and then he adds, " Qui strepit in campo, hie silet in scholis." This may have been the subject set for the exercise, but I fancy it is a quotation, perhaps modified to suit the occasion. If so, I should be glad of the reference, and, as I am writing, should also be glad of any other reference to the horse-race. JOHN R. MAGRATH. Queen's College, Oxford. " GILL ALE." In The Daily Post (London) of Jan. 4, 1742, it is recorded that " last week died, in wealthy circumstances, Mr. John Meak, Clerk and Principal Manager at Mr. Lloyd's Pale and Gill Ale Brewhouse in Golden Lane." The earliest illustrative quotation for " gill ale " in ' N.E.D.' is from Johnson of 1755 : " Gill, a malt liquor medicated with ground-ivy." Does the extract given above not also furnish a very early illustration of " pale ale," a> combination which a few years since was to be more commonly found in France than in England, where it has largely died out ? ALFRED ROBBINS. CASE BEFORE LORD LANGDALE : DEATH PRESUMED. I have read somewhere that when Lord Langdale was Master of the Rolls, i.e., between 1836 and 1851, he was asked to presume the death of a certain tenant for life of a fund in court, and to make an order for the distribution of the money. Nothing had been heard of the tenant for life for twenty years or more, and Lord Langdale accordingly made the order ; but when it was taken to the proper office to be entered, the clerk whose duty it was to enter it turned out to be the tenant for life whose death had been presumed. He eventually proved his identity to the satisfaction of the court, though for many years he had been living under an assumed name. Can this story be substantiated ? JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT. JOE MANTON. The biographical account, in the ' D.N.B.,' of this famous gunmaker to George III., George IV. and the King of France, inventor of so ma*ny improvements in guns, makes no mention of his parentage. Col. Peter Hawker, in his book ' Instructions to Young Sportsmen,' recently reprinted, is equally silent on the subject. Can anyone supply the deficiency ? Other particulars as to his family would also be welcome. E. W. ANTISEPTIC ISLAND. Mr. P. W. Joyce, LL.D., states in his ' Wonders of Ireland * (1911): There is an island about half a mile in length called Inishglara, lying one mile from the coast of Erris and five miles west of Belmullet in Mayo, which in old times was very much cele- brated ; for its air and soil had the virtue of preserving the bodies of the dead from decay. . . . They retained their ordinary looks un- changed ; and their nails and hair grew quite naturally, so that a person was able to recognize not only his father and grandfather, but even his ancestors to a remote generation. . . . This
