In Manning's Surrey, I find not any mention of this term; but apprehend it to be a corruption of the Norman-French, vert plain, "a green road or alley:" which, as our Saxon ancestors pronounced the v as a w, easily slides into war plain or warple. (See Du Cange, Supp., in voce "Plain.")
C. H.
The Ducking-stool (Vol. viii., p.315.).—As late as the year 1824, a woman was convicted of being a common scold in the Court of Quarter Sessions of Philadelphia County, and sentenced "to be placed in a certain instrument of correction called a cucking or ducking-stool," and plunged three times into the water; but the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, upon the removal of the case by writ of error, decided that this punishment was obsolete, and contrary to the spirit of the age.
Our fathers held the ducking-stool in higher respect, as appears from the following presentments of the grand juries of Philadelphia, the originals of which have been lately discovered. In January, 1717, they say (through William Fishbourne, their foreman),—
"Whereas it has been frequently and often presented by several former grand juries for this city, the necessity of a ducking-stool and house of correction for the just punishment of scolding, drunken women, as well as divers other profligate and unruly persons in this place, who are become a public nuisance and disturbance to this town in general; therefore we, the present grand jury, do earnestly again present the same to this court of quarter sessions for the city, desiring their immediate care, that those publick conveniences may not be any longer delayed, but with all possible speed provided for the detection and quieting such disorderly persons."
Another, the date of which is not given, but which is signed by the same foreman, presents "Alsoe that a ducking-stoole be made for publick use, being very much wanting for scolding women," &c. And in 1720, another grand jury, of which Benjamin Duffield was foreman, say:
"The Grand Inquest, we taking in consideration the great disorders of the turbulent and ill-behaviour of many people in this city, we present the great necessity of a ducking-stool for such people according to their deserts."
Uneda.
Philadelphia.
Double Christian Names (Vol. ix., p. 45.).—It is surely not correct to say that the earliest instance of two Christian names is in the case of a person born in 1635. Surely Henry, Prince of Wales, the son of James I., is an earlier instance. Sir Thomas Strand Fairfax was certainly born before that date. Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey was probably an earlier instance; and Sir Robert Bruce Colton, the antiquary, certainly so. Writing at a distance from my books, I can only appeal to memory; but see Southey's Common-Place Book, vol. i. p. 510. Venables, in his Travels in Russia,