Chapter C: I. R

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THE CURFEW.

(Vol. ii., pp. 103. 175. 189. 311.; Vol. iv., p. 240.; Vol. vi., pp.
53. 112.; Vol. vii., pp. 167. 530.; Vol. viii., p. 603.)

The curfew is still rung at Kidderminster at eight o'clock. It is the annual custom there, on a certain night, to continue the ringing for one hour, a sum of money having been left for that purpose as a thank-offering to God, for the curfew having been the means of saving a person from destruction. This person had lost his way on his return from Bridgenorth Fair, and when (as he afterwards discovered) on the point of falling from a great height, the sound of the Kidderminster curfew caused him to retrace his steps and regain the road. A five o'clock morning bell is also rung at Kidderminster. This and the curfew bell have been rung for many years past by "Blind William," who, notwithstanding his total blindness, finds his way along the streets that lead from his house to the church, and gains the belfry with the greatest ease. So well is he acquainted with the path to church, that he may be seen to turn the corners of the streets in as decided a manner as if his wide-open eyes were endowed with sight; and, with similar facility, he unlocks the gates and church doors. It is curious to see him on the dark winter evenings, apparently guiding his steps by the light of a lanthorn, which he probably carries in order to prevent careless people, who are blessed with sight, from running against him. Like most (if not all) blind people, he has an extraordinary ear for music, and will quickly reproduce on his violin any tune that may have caught his fancy. At this present festive period, a Kidderminster Christmas would lack one of its component parts, were Blind Willie and his fiddle not there to add to the harmony of the kindly season. During the month preceding Christmas, he promenades the streets at untimely hours, and draws from his old fiddle all the music which it is capable of giving forth. Indeed, Blind Willie may be considered (in Kidderminster at least) as the harbinger of Christmas, for he warns the inhabitants of its approach, long before the ordinary "waits" have taken their ordinary measures for the same purpose. And when Christmas Day is past and gone, he makes house-to-house visitation for the Christmas-box which is to be the reward of his "early minstrelsy."

The curfew is rung at Bewdley in Worcestershire.

At Durham the curfew is rung (on the great bell of the cathedral) at nine o'clock. It is therefore of the same use to the students of the University of Durham as "Tom" is to the students of the University of Oxford, viz. it marks the closing of the college gates.

CUTHBERT BEDE, B.A.

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PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE.

_Photographic Engraving._--I inclose a copy of a little book for your inspection, which is remarkable only in this, that the illustrations are produced by photography. The general theory of the method is this: a piece of glass is covered with a uniform thin coating of some substance, so as to be opaque or semi-opaque (the substance should be light coloured), and a design is etched on it with a needle. From this _negative_ positive pictures are printed photographically.

As to details, the prints of the mice (p. 46.) and the cat (p. 37.) are from a glass coated with iodized collodion rendered sensitive, exposed to faint light for a short time and developed. In this method, the glass should be heated; and the collodion _burnished_ with the hand, to make it adhere well.[5] The owl (p. 22.) and the stork (p. 10.) are from a glass coated with iodized collodion "rendered sensitive" only, and not developed so as to be only semi-opaque. On this high lights were put with opaque white, and darks were etched out. This has the effect of a tinted lithograph, but requires much more care in printing than the former method, in order to hit the right tint; so much so, that I have usually printed the stork faintly so as not to show the "tint" at all. The frontispiece is from a paper negative, a method much more troublesome and tedious than either of the others, both in preparation of the negative and in printing.

I have lately tried gilt glass to etch upon. This would be excellent, were it not most painful to the eyes. And more than two years ago, I prepared a negative by painting whites with water colour on transparent glass with moderate success.

I have recently received from Rome a positive printed from a negative on smoked glass, the subject being a mule's head. Of all the methods I have tried, the best is the first mentioned; and it seems to me easier than any species of engraving.

Query, What is the best coating for the glass; and what will be the cost of printing on a great scale, as compared with woodcut, lithograph, &c.; in which must be included the cost of the skilled workman which will be saved by this method?

HUGH BLACKBURN.

[When we add that the work referred to is an edition of _The History of
Little Downey_, that the prints in it are executed by a lady, and
printed at home by the photographic process, and that a limited number
of copies may be had on application to Messrs. {629} Constable and Co.
of Edinburgh, the sale being for the benefit of the Glasgow Ragged
School, we have no doubt many of our readers will be glad to secure
copies, and help to forward the good work which its publication is
intended to promote.]

[Footnote 5: This method was suggested to me by Professor Maconochie, who indeed prepared the glass on which the mice were etched.]

_Collodion Negatives._--Allow me to communicate a sure and simple way of darkening collodion positives for printing. It was shown to me by a friend of mine; and not having seen it in your "N. & Q.," I have undertaken to lay it before your readers, hoping that it may be found useful to many beginners.

After having developed your picture, as a positive, with protosulphate of iron and nitric acid, wash it well from the developing fluid, and keep it on one end that all the water may drop from the plate. Then take three parts of a concentrated solution of gallic acid, and one part of a nitrate of silver solution, 60 grains to the ounce of water; mix together, and pour on the plate. The picture will gradually begin to blacken; and after half an hour or more, you will obtain a sufficient density for printing a positive on paper.

Every one who will take the trouble to try it will be sure to succeed. Of all the ways to blackening a picture for printing I have tried, not excepting Professor Maconochie's method with chloride of gold and muriate of ammonia, the surest I find is the one which I have laid before you. Just try it, and you will be glad with the result.

F. M. (a Maltese.)

Malta, Valetta.

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Replies to Minor Queries.

"_London Labour and the London Poor_" (Vol. viii., p. 527.).--I beg to inform MR. GANTILLON that the above work is discontinued. The parts entitled "Those that will work" and "Those that cannot work" have been completed, and form a valuable book; but the discontinuance of the third part is no loss at all, for in commencing upon "Those that will not work," Mr. Mayhew began with a history of prostitution in ancient and modern times, a subject which did not possess the novelty or originality of his other divisions, and consequently his readers fell off so fast that he was forced first to raise the price of, and afterwards to discontinue altogether, the publication. Probably, if he had confined himself to treating the London prostitutes as he did the costermongers, the work would have been completed, and would then have formed a complete encyclopædia of London Labour and the London Poor.

ARTHUR C. WILSON.

Brompton.

_Felicia Hemans's inedited Lyric_ (Vol. viii., p. 407.).--Your correspondent MR. WELD TAYLOR seems to possess the first rude draught of the following beautiful piece by Felicia Hemans, entitled, "The Elfin Call," a duet sung by Miss A. Williams and Miss M. Williams, Miss Messent and Miss Dolby, Mrs. A. Newton and Miss Lanza, Miss Cubitt and Miss Porter, Mrs. Aveling Smith and Miss Sara Flower, Miss Emma Lucombe and Miss Eliza Birch, Miss Turner and Miss E. Turner. The music by Stephen Glover:

"Come away, Elves! while the dew is sweet,
Come to the dingles where fairies meet;
Know that the lilies have spread their bells
O'er all the pools in our forest dells;
Come away, under arching bows we'll float,
Making each urn a fairy boat;
We'll row them with reeds o'er the fountains free,
And a tall flag-leaf shall our streamer be.
And we'll send out wild music so sweet and low,
It shall seem from the bright flower's heart to flow;
As if 'twere a breeze with a flute's low sigh,
Or water-drops train'd into melody,
And a star from the depth of each pearly cup,
A golden star into heav'n looks up,
As if seeking its kindred where bright they lie,
Set in the blue of the summer sky."

J. YEOWELL.

_Sir Arthur Aston_ (Vol. viii., pp. 126. 302.).--Though unable to inform CHARTHAM and A READER in what part of the co. of Berks the above cavalier resided during the interval of time named by the former, I think I can state the connexion, by marriage only, between the Tattersall and Aston families: I believe it will be found that they were not "nearly related."

Thomas Howard, fourth duke of Norfolk, by his first wife, Mary Fitzalan, had Philip (_jure matris_), Earl of Arundel, who died 1595 attainted, and was succeeded by Thomas, created Earl of Norfolk. This last was father of Henry Frederick and grandfather of Charles Howard, of Greystock Castle, who married Mary, eldest daughter and coheiress of George Tattersall, of West Court, Finchampstead, and Stapleford, co. Wilts.

Charles Howard, as above, was the fourth brother of Henry, sixth Duke of Norfolk, which last was grandfather (through Thomas, his son, of Worksop) of Mary Howard, who married Walter Aston, fourth Baron Aston, of Forfar, in Scotland.

H. C. C.

I furnished a memoir of this famous soldier to the _Gentleman's Magazine_ in 1833 or 1834.

G. STEINMAN STEINMAN.

_Grammar in relation to Logic_ (Vol. viii., p. 514).--MR. INGLEBY evidently has but a superficial view of this doctrine, which is not only Dr. Latham's, but one, I apprehend, pretty well known to every Oxford undergraduate, viz. that, logically, _conjunctions connect propositions, not words_. By way of proving the falsity of it (which he says is demonstrable), he bids Dr. Latham "resolve this sentence: _All men are either two-legged, one-legged, or no-legged_:" and adds, "It cannot be done." I may inform him that the three categorical propositions, "A man is two-legged, or he is {630} one-legged, or he is no-legged," connected by their several copulas, are equivalent to and co-extensive with the disjunctive proposition which he instances.

MR. INGLEBY quotes Boole's _Mathematical (?) Analysis of Logic_ in support of his opinion; but, from the following specimen of that work, it does not appear to be much of an authority. The author says:

"The proposition, Every animal is either rational or irrational, cannot
be resolved into, Either every animal is rational or every animal is
irrational. The former belongs to pure categoricals, the latter to
hypotheticals."

Now the first sentence of this passage is an absurd truism; but the proposition in question can be resolved into--An animal is rational or it is irrational. Again, "the former does _not_ belong to pure categoricals," it is simply disjunctive. MR. INGLEBY falls into the same error, and moreover seems not to be aware that a disjunctive proposition is at the same time hypothetical.

Logically speaking, a conjunction implies two propositions; and, strictly, connects propositions only. To say that conjunctions connect words, may be true in a certain sense; but it is a very superficial and loose mode of stating the matter.

H. C. K.

----Rectory, Hereford.

_Descendants of Milton_ (Vol. viii., p. 339.).--I have in the course of my life met with or heard of more than once or twice, people of the same names, and those very uncommon ones, who were in no way related to each other; nevertheless, I venture to tell your correspondent J. F. M. that about twenty years ago there was living the skipper of a coasting vessel, trading between Bridport and London, named Caleb Clark. He or his family are probably living at Bridport now.

[Greek: Alpha].

_Pronunciation of Bible Names_ (Vol. viii., p. 469.).--The clerk of a retired parish in North-west Devon, who had to read the first lesson always, used to make a hash of Shadrac, Meshac, and Abednego; and as the names are twelve times repeated in the third chapter of Daniel, after getting through them the first time, he called them "the aforesaid gentlemen" afterwards.

W. COLLYNS.

Harlow.

_Henry I.'s Tomb_ (Vol. viii., p. 411.).--I fancy that the much mooted question, as to the existence of a monumental tomb over the remains of King Henry I. in Reading Abbey, may at once be set at rest by referring to Tanner's _Notitia Monastica_, edit. 1744, in the second column of p. 15.: where it is evident that a tomb and an effigy of King Henry I. had once existed; that they had both fallen into decay; and that, in the time of King Richard II., the Abbot of Reading was required to repair both the tomb and the effigy of King Henry the founder, who was there buried, within the space of one year, as the condition on which the charters were to be confirmed:

"Cart. 5 & 6 Ric. II. n. 24.; Pat. 8 Ric. II. p. 1. m. 18. Pat. 16 Ric. II. p. 1. m. 38.; Pat. 21 Ric. II. p. 3. m. 16. Confirm. Libertatum, modo Abbas infra unum Annum honeste repararet Tumbam et Imaginem _R. Henrici_ Fundatoris, ibidem humati."