LATE COMMERCIAL

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 141, 11 December 1914, Page 2

LATE COMMERCIAL

LONDON MARKETS. (By Telegraph— Press Association— Copjright) (Received December 11, 11 a.m.) LONDON, 10th December Wheat.- — There is a weaker American market. Favourable weather in the Argentine has led to dullness here. Prices are little changed. Australian, on spot,, none offering. Flour— Market firm. Australian, ex store, 36s to 36s 6d. Barley, peas, and beans firm. > ■ Prices unchanged. Oats.— Market firm. Bahia^Blanca De-cember-January shipment, 23s 3d. Copper— On spot, £56 12s 6d to £56 17s 6d; three months, £56 17s 6d to £57 2s 6d ; electrolytic, £59 10s to £60. Tin —Cash £146 10s to £147. Pig Iron.— s2s lid. Spelter— £2B and £20 10s. Sugar.— 27s 6d. Bar silver is quoted at 23id per ounce 'standard. Butter. — The market is very firm. Choicest is scarce. Prices— Australian salted, 132s to 1345; unsalted, 134s to l36sj secondary, 124s to 128s. Cheese.— New Zealand" cleared cheese firm ', Canadian, 79s to 80s. AUSTRALIAN PRODUCE. • (Received December 11, 9.50 a.m.) a MELBOURNE. This Day Wheat, 6s 9d ; flour, £14 ; oats, feeding, 3s 9d to 4s ; seeding, 4s 3d ; barley, English, 5s 9cl to 6s; Cape, 4s 3d to 4s 6dj maize, 4s 7d; bran, £9 ss; pollard, £9 10s; potatoes, old, £6 7s; onkms, £11 to £il 10s.

Two of the war words that are commonest just now come from before the days of gunpowder, though they are applied to explosive engines. They are ' ' gun and ' ' howitzer. " " Howitzer " is a word of Bohemian origin, meaning stone-slirtg or catapult. Tho earliest form of artillery, if one may so use the word, was the' great catapult for slinging stones— the Roman ballista. The word "howitzer" got, into German during the Hussite religious ware with Bohemia early in the fifteenth century. Even more curious (says an English paper) is the supposed derivation of the word "gun." Scholars believe it to be probably short for gunlrilda or gunnhildr, a Scandinavian female name Both halves of the name in Norse mean " war." It was and is common in armies to give a feminine pet name to engines of war, as, for instance, " Mons Meg," the famous old cannon in Edinburgh Castle. By chance a surprising confirmation of this derivation has since been found in an account of the war stores at Windsor Castle <v 1330, which mentions a big catapult there known as "Lady, Gunhilda.."