WORDS AND NAMES OF PERSONAL ORIGIN.

Evening Post, Volume XLIII, Issue 143, 18 June 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

WORDS AND NAMES OF PERSONAL ORIGIN.

The young ladies who used to be allowed at evening parties to sip a sweetened compound of hot wine and water were probably not aware that their rather 'sickly beverage was named after a Colonel Negus, of Queen Anne's time. Again, what eater of greengages troubles himself about Ihe Mr. Gage who first brought that delectable fruit in to England from France? Another edible — the familiar sandwich. — wiis invented in the last century by a noble earl bearing that name, who * being a devoted gambler, desirod in take his nourishment without stopping the play, and hit upon the ha|jpy thought of accomplishing (he feat by the simple insertion of a piece of meat between two slices of bread, which could then be held in the hand and consumed while the game progressed. It was the same Earl of Sandwich who, after a hypocritical attack on his former boon companion, John Wilkes, •in the House of Lords, was unanimously christened "Jemmy Twitcher," after a personage in the " Beggars' Opera," whose character may be guessed from Gay's lines : — When sly Jemmy Twitchor had smugged tip his face With a lick of Court whitewash and pious grimace. At the first performance of the play after Lord Sandwich's speech, when Macbeath spoke the live, "That Jemmy Twitcher should peach me I own surprised me," the whole house roared, and his lordship bore the name from that hour. Names of garments and articles of personal use are often take from the names of the inventors or designers. A Lord Spencer of a past generation once cut off his coat tails, and betted that it would become the fashion. His lordship won his bet, and the " spencer" was a well-known article of dress for many years. The vocabularies of the various sciences which deal with plants and living organisms, Buch as botany, zoology, and others, contain many names and terms derived from persons which are known only to the initiated, but they also contain many words of similar origin that are familiar to everyone, although the non-scienti-fic reader or speaker may not be very clear as to their etymology. Even a gardener may be forgiven for not known that the dahlia is a perpetual commemoration of Dahl, the Swedish botanist ; the begonia, of Michel Begon, the Frenchman ; the fuchsia, of Fuchs, the German ; camellia, of Kamel (Latinised Camellus), the Moravian Jesuit, who introduced the flower from the East ; and the magnolia, of Pierre Magnol, the Frenchman. Many other names of flowers and plants have not yet become sufficiently familiarised to hide their personal origin. Thus the Kafflesias, the Adamsonias, the Wellingtonias, and other plants that have not yet dropped the dignity of the capital letter, require no penetration to discover the derivation of their names.— Casseli's Saturday Journal for April.

The Virginia Legislature has passed an Ami-Gambling Bill, and Governor McKinney has signed it. It forbids " bookmaking " or bettiug on horse-racing in that State. A sow of Charles Matthews, born in NewYork, is now, at the ago of forty-two years, becoming 1 conßpicuout at tho English Bar.