Chapter M: A. LOWER, Esq., Lewes

REV. DR. HUME, Liverpool.
WILLIAM AYRTON, Esq., Chester.
SAMUEL TYMMS, Esq., Bury St. Edmunds, and
HENRY HARROD, Esq., Norwich.

SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.

Mr. Willis is informed with reference to a paragraph which appeared in his "Current Notes" for December, p. 93, that the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, whose issues have been suspended since 1846, will forthwith resume publishing.

THE SLOGANS OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND have been published by Mr. G. B. Richardson, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

THE BRITISH MUSEUM.--A recent resolution of the Trustees of this National Establishment has been considered, in certain Antiquarian circles, to present "_a fair specimen of double-dealing_."

AN IRISH NUMISMATIST.

AUTOGRAPHIC BIOGRAPHY.

January 3rd, 1852.

SIR,--I trust I shall not trespass upon the limits of your courtesy, if I beg your assistance with regard to the accompanying list of names, about whom I am anxious to gain any information as to dates of birth, death, or any subject of interest connected with the individuals.

As I live in the country and have not the facility of access to a library for reference, I avail myself of the medium of your instructive and valuable publication, and beg to subscribe myself, with all good wishes,

Your obedient servant,
ELLEN F.

Symonds' Inn. 24th April, 1787. Edward Montagu.
No date. Marquis de Spinola.

St. Petersburg. 24th Jan. 1805. C. A. Pozzo di Borgo.
No date. Geo. R. Collier, Commodore.

London. 13th March, 1820. W. Plumer.
20th May, 1829. Jno. Bruce.
No date. P. P. Jacob.

ROWLAND HILL AND THE PENNY POSTAGE.

The following is the commencement of a leading article on the Penny Postage, contained in the "_Times_," of Saturday, 9th August, 1851:--

"A traveller sauntering through the Lake districts of
England some years ago, arrived at a small public-house
just as the postman stopped to deliver a letter. A
young girl came out to receive it. She took it in her
hand, turned it over and over, and asked the charge.
It was a large sum--no less than a shilling. Sighing
heavily, she observed that it came from her brother,
but that she was too poor to take it in, and she
returned it to the postman accordingly. The traveller
was a man of kindness as well as of observation; he
offered to pay the postage himself, and in spite of
more reluctance on the girl's part than he could well
understand, he did pay it, and gave her the letter. No
sooner, however, was the postman's back turned, than
she confessed that the proceeding had been concerted
between her brother and herself, that the letter was
empty, that certain signs on the direction conveyed
all she wanted to know, and that as they could neither
of them afford to pay postage, they had devised this
method of franking the intelligence desired. The
traveller pursued his journey, and as he plodded over
the Cumberland fells, he mused upon the badness of a
system which drove people to such straits for means
of correspondence, and defeated its own object all
the time. With most men such musings would have ended
before the close of the hour, but this man's name was
ROWLAND HILL, and it was from this incident and these
reflections that the whole scheme of Penny Postage was
derived."

I should be glad to know if there is any doubt as to the truth of this statement, as I fancied it had been contradicted. Could any of your Correspondents oblige me by giving me information on the subject, I should feel obliged.

I. E.

ENQUIRY.

Boston, January 15th, 1852.

SIR,--I send you a query for "Current Notes."

"Robbed between Sun and Sun."

Can any of your communicants favor me with the origin of this expression? It was employed to describe the late Revolution in Paris, by the "Examiner," and I have seen it as a quotation in a work of old date.

Y. S. N.

DENTAL SURGERY.--In the observations on the progress of Geography and Ethnology, by Mr. John Russell Bartlett, read at the Meeting of the New York Historical Society in November and December, 1846, it is mentioned that in the exploration of a tumuli carried on by Dr. M. W. Dickeson, in the South-western States, chiefly in Mississippi, although in some instances extending to Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas, he found that Dentistry had been extensively practised by this ancient people, as plugging the teeth and inserting artificial ones, were common. In one instance five artificial teeth were found inserted in one subject.

T. C. B.

CAPPING A STORY.--Rogers, the poet, was fond of telling the story of a gentleman who lost a shilling in Covent Garden Market, just at the corner of the Great Piazza, and on his return from India some five-and-twenty years afterwards, on passing the spot where he supposed the loss had taken place, remembered the circumstance, and looking about him on the pavement, picked up his shilling. Here Rogers, in his own inimitable way of telling a story, would pause, and then add--"IN HALFPENCE, _wrapped up in paper_."

"I knew the man," said a witty friend to the poet, "but you have forgotten the most singular point of the story about the recovery of this lost shilling _just at the door of Willis the bookseller's place of business_."

"I thought it sufficiently odd," replied the poetical banker, "our friend having found his shilling after so long a period, and only wish that my lost notes may turn up again in the same unexpected and amusing manner--_that notes turn up to me from Willis_."

"Then you must have heard the whole story, and the very remarkable fact to which I refer? That in the paper which contained the four-and-twenty halfpence he found another filled with farthings, the exact amount of which when calculated, proved to be that of compound interest upon the shilling for five-and-twenty years one month and thirteen days."

Mr. Rogers has never since told the story.

ROBERT HOBLYN.

SIR,--Through the medium of your publication, can you tell me anything about "Robt. Hoblyn;" and what works he has published? I believe they were of a classical nature; and he was living in 1825.

Yours truly,
A. K.

Jan. 2, 1852.

A TRAVELLING NAME.--I have heard or read somewhere of a story about one of the authors of the "Rejected Addresses"--indeed, I now remember that he told it to me himself--how that he once travelled in a stage coach with a very agreeable old lady, who was well acquainted with London society, and with whom he conversed for a considerable time about various mutual friends and circumstances that could only be known to them, or to their immediate circle, with so much familiarity, that the old lady's curiosity being roused, she ventured to inquire his name. "James Smith, madam," was the reply. "Oh, that's your travelling name, is it? But it won't do for me."

J.

SMITH.--Has not some one written, or is not some one going to write, a history of the Smiths? It really might be made a very amusing book, and some one--I forget who--actually told me that "the far-famed Ruffian of the Adelphi," (O. S.) was collecting materials for or from such a book. I subscribe my real name--identify, if you can, Mr. Willis.

JOHN SMITH.

PILGRIM'S BADGE?--A Correspondent has kindly transmitted to G. W. a rubbing from which the annexed woodcut has been made, of a small brass ornament, found at Launde Abbey, in Leicestershire, which abbey or priory was founded by Rd. Basset, in the reign of Henry III. dissolved by Henry VIII., and Cromwell, Earl of Essex, had a grant of it. In the Chapel (all that remains of the Priory) is a monument to his son Gregory, Lord Cromwell, of the date of 1551. The ornament is supposed to be a Pilgrim's Badge, brought from Rome, and probably was buried with him.