Spy Wednesday.—I observed the other day, under the Spanish News in The Times of Wednesday, the 14th April, 1852, the following paragraph:
"It being Spy Wednesday, the Bourse remained closed."
Can any correspondent inform me the meaning of "Spy Wednesday," it being a term I have never yet heard so applied?
John Nurse Chadwick.
King's Lyn.
Passemer's "Antiquities of Devonshire."—In Bagford's MS. Collections on Writing, Printing, &c., in the British Museum (Ayscough's Cat., No. 885.), at fo. 102., among writers on Devonshire appears the following:
"Id. Ye antiquitates of ye same countey is collected out of ye antient bookes belonging to ye Bishopprick of Exeter, by one Mr. George Passemer, vicar of Awliscombe, in ye said countey."
Can either of your correspondents state whether Mr. Passemer's work is known to be in existence?
J. D. S.
Will O' Wisp.—Notwithstanding the steam-engine may be said to have done almost as much towards destroying the gaseous exhalations of our bog-lands by the means of drainage, as it has done towards the amelioration of the stagnant moors and intellectual morasses of society, it can hardly have dispelled every Ignis Fatuus from every quagmire, any more than it has even yet chased the ignorance from every dull head. The object of this communication is to ask for the names of a few specific localities where that noted misleader of the benighted—Will O' Wisp—still continues to manifest his presence?