Some Queer English Names

1910

Sussex can produce queer names in plenty, for example: Replenished Pryor, a damsel who dwelt at Heathfield; Mr. Stand-fast-on-high Stringer; Mr. Ales Cressel, and Master Perform-thy-vows Seers. The county archives also yield unusual family names, such as Pitchfork, Devil, Leper, Juglery, Beatup, Breathing, Whiskey, Wildgoose, and Lies.

Dorset can hold her own tolerably well with villages named Ryme Intrinseca and Toller Porcorum; rivers called Wriggle river and Devil's brook; commons christened Giddy green and God's Blessing green, and heights called Hungry down, Mount Ararat, Grammars hill, and Dancing hill. A prospective tenant might well hesitate before signing the lease of Wooden Cabbage farm, Labor in Vain farm, Poor Lot farm and Charity bottom, even though he should hail from Kent, which owns two Starvecrow farms within a ride of each other. — London Chronicle.

Montenegro May Become Zeta

1910

"Changing the map of Europe" is a phrase that had a grim significance during the greater part of the last century.

There were people with long memories who knew that changes in the map of Europe as a rule were brought about by war. But there is a possibility of a peaceful change of the map of Europe by Prince Nicholas of Montenegro.

He proposes when his principality becomes a kingdom an event that is to be celebrated with appropriate brilliancy this month — its name shall be altered to Zeta, which is what is was called in ancient times. Map-makers will take notice.

Street Illumination

1917

"Illuminating engineers are now turning all their energies toward a system for the proper distribution of street lighting," writes Walter R. Howell in Good Health. "They have unanimously agreed that the best light is that from a globe that is dense enough not to reveal the form of the actual light within, but to give the effect of light streaming forth from the globe."

The reason for this is that street lamps are necessarily against a dark background, and the amount of glare upon the eyes depends to a great degree upon the background against which the light is seen. An electric light, unshaded, against a dark velvet wall covering, for instance, will be found much more trying to the eyes than would the same light with a white wall paper behind it.


The Name of Arizona

Arizona, probably Arizonac in its original form, was the native and probably Pima name of the place — of a hill, valley, stream or some other local feature — just south of the modern boundary, in the mountains still so called, on the headwaters of the stream flowing past Saric, where the famous Planchas de Plata mine was discovered in the middle of the eighteenth century, the name being first known to the Spaniards in that connection and being applied to the mining camp or real de minas. The aboriginal meaning of the term is not known. The name should probably be written and pronounced Arisona. as our English sound of z does not occur in Spanish. — H. H. Bancroft, "History of the Pacific States."

Origin of Some Geographical Names

1896

The Menominee, in Wisconsin, was named from a tribe of the same name. The word means "wild rice."

Massachusetts Bay was named from two Indian words, Mais Tchusaeg, meaning "this side the hills."

The Catawissa River, in Pennsylvania, was named from an Indian word that means "getting fat."

The Cattaraugus, in New York, has its name from an Indian expression signifying "bad smelling banks."

The Platte River was originally named the Nebraska, from an Indian word meaning "shallow water."

The Housatonic, in Connecticut, was called by the Indians Wussiadenex, the "stream beyond the mountains."

The Delaware Bay gave its name to the State. The bay was named from Thomas West, Lord De La War.

The Chickahominy had its designation from an Indian word, Chik-a-maw-hony, "the place of turkeys."

Appalachie Bay, Florida, was variously termed Apahlachie, Abolachie, Apeolatel, Palaxy, Palatachy, and so on.

The Neversink was not named because its waters do not get low, but from the Indian Na-wa-sink, "ma-river."

The Pascagoula, in Mississippi, was named from the Indians called the Pascagoulas, or "the bread-making Nation."

Lake Champlain was named in honor of its discoverer. The Indians called it Canaderi-Guarunte, "the door of the country."

Cape Fear River, in North Carolina, was originally Charles River, afterward Cape Fair River, corrupted to Cape Fear.

Albemarle Sound was named after George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, one of the members of the original charter company. — Boston Journal.

Animals' Memory — Remembering Places They've Been, Things Done

1899

Animals' Memory

Monsieur Henri de Parville, a French writer, has collected instances of animal intelligence, many of which are of a character to indicate that animals always remember things which have become habitual with them. In many cases they remember a single kindness or a single unkindness, and treat the author of it accordingly; but the habitual thing may be said to be always remembered, and the unaccustomed thing only occasionally.

Monsieur De Parville gives an amusing account of the performances of six coach horses which were regularly driven on the diligence between Berne and Gurnigel, Switzerland. They reached Gurnigel each day after a long and hard journey, and at the inn were detached from the vehicle and allowed to find their own way to the stable. Before going to the stable they invariably set out on a little tour through the hotel grounds, where the guests were in the habit of giving them lumps of sugar. Marching from one guest to another, the horses gently demanded their sugar. This was an established custom at the place, and although newly arrived guests sometimes objected to it, they soon fell into the way of liking it, and frequented the grounds for the sake of meeting the horses.

The diligence plied only four months of the year, and the horses were employed elsewhere during the other eight months; but on the resumption of the trips in summer, these horses, who were used from year to year in the diligence, eagerly resumed their tour through the hotel gardens, showing, on the very first trip the greatest haste to go the familiar round of the year before in quest of sugar.

Monsieur De Parville also tells of a cavalry horse named Ménélas, belonging to the Tenth Regiment of Chasseurs, who, after being ridden in the cavalry manoeuvres in the ring at the barracks, became so fond of the evolutions that he would manage to escape from his stall at night, betake himself to the ring, and go through the required movements alone.

His nocturnal performance became known, and the officers and men frequently went to watch it. Ménélas would be left unhitched in his stall, and when all became quiet, would go out, find his way to the ring, and solemnly but briskly go through the whole drill, apparently remembering every detail of it in the proper order.

The writer of this witnessed a curious demonstration of the excellence of a dog's memory. He possessed a collie, who, at the age of about one year, had an attack of distemper, and was sent from Boston to a farm in Vermont, where he remained several months. While there he spent a good deal of time in digging out woodchucks and barking at their burrows, all over the large farm. He was sent back to Boston.

Some five years afterward he was taken by his master on a visit to the same farm in Vermont and he had no sooner arrived than he started out on a tour of the old familiar woodchuck holes. The farmer, who had been very familiar with his ways, said that he did not omit a single spot where woodchucks' burrows had existed during his previous sojourn, and went straight to them without any search.

The dog also fell instantly into all the old routine of the farm, and kept the dish out of which he ate in the spot where he had formerly kept it. He showed that he had forgotten no detail of his habits on the place five years before. — Youth's Companion.