known librarian
of the University of Cambridge, could repeat by heart the whole of the
eight and forty pages of this strange gallimawfrey.

W. J. THOMS.

_Hipperswitches_ (Vol. ii., p. 280.).--I saw a story which was copied into
the _Examiner_ of Oct. 5. from "NOTES AND QUERIES," entitled "Sir Gammer
Vans." The correspondent who has furnished {397} you with the tale says
that he is ignorant of the meaning of "hipper switches." Now hipper is a
word applied in this part of the country to a description of osiers used in
coarse basket making, and which were very likely things to be bound up into
switches. A field in which they grow, near the water side, is called a
"hipper-holm." There is a station on the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway,
which takes its name from such a meadow. My nurse, a Cornwall woman, tells
me _hipper_ withies fetch a higher price than common withies in her
country.

E. C. G.

Lancaster.

_Cat and Bagpipes_ (Vol. ii., p. 266.).--A public-house of considerable
notoriety, with this sign, existed long at the corner of Downing Street,
next to King Street. It was also used as a chop-house, and frequented by
many of those connected with the public offices in the neighbourhood.

An old friend told me that many years ago he met George Rose,--so well
known in after life as the friend of Pitt, clerk of the Parliament,
secretary of the Treasury, &c., and executor of the Earl of
Marchmont,--then a bashful young man, at the Cat and Bagpipes.

I may mention that George Rose was one of the few instances which I have
met with, where a Scotsman had freed himself from the peculiarities of the
speech of his country. Sir William Grant was another. Frank Homer was a
third. I never knew another.

R.

_Forlot, Firlot, or Furlet_ (Vol. i., p. 371.).--It may be interesting to
your correspondent J. S. to be informed that there is a measure of capacity
in universal use in this part of India called a _fara_ or _fura_, which is
identical in shape, and, as nearly as can be judged by the eye, in size,
with the Scottish _furlet_. The _fura_ is divided into sixteen _pilys_, a
small measure in universal use here; in like manner as the _furlet_ is
divided into sixteen _lipys_, which measure was, and I presume still is, in
general use throughout Scotland. A friend informs me that, in the west of
Scotland, the common pronunciation of the word _furlet_ is exactly the same
as that of the word _fura_ here by the Mahrattas. It is u