MINOR NOTES
Cinderella, or the Glass Slipper.—Two centuries ago furs were so rare, and therefore so highly valued, that the wearing of them was restricted by several sumptuary laws to kings and princes. Sable, in those laws called vair, was the subject of countless regulations: the exact quality permitted to be worn by persons of different grades, and the articles of dress to which it might be applied, were defined most strictly. Perrault's tale of Cinderella originally marked the dignity conferred on her by the fairy by her wearing a slipper of vair, a privilege then confined to the highest rank of princesses. An error of the press, now become inveterate, changed vair into verre, and the slipper of sable was suddenly converted into a glass slipper.
Jarltzberg.
Mistletoe on Oaks.—In Vol. ii., p. 163., I observed a citation on the extreme rarity of mistletoe on oaks, from Dr. Giles and Dr. Daubeny; and with reference to it, and to some remarks of Professor Henslow in the Gardeners' Chronicle, I communicated to the latter journal, last week, the fact of my having, at this present time, a bunch of that plant growing in great luxuriance on an oak aged upwards of seventy years.
I beg leave to repeat it for the use of your work, and to add, what I previously appended as likely to be interesting to the archæologist of Wales or the Marches, that the oak bearing it stands about half a mile N.W. of my residence here, on the earthen mound of Badamscourt, once a moated mansion of the Herberts, or Ab-Adams, of Beachley adjacent, and of Llanllowell.
George Ormerod.
Sedbury Park, Chepstow.
Omnibuses.—It may be interesting to your readers at a future time to know when these vehicles, the use of which is daily extending, were introduced into this country; perhaps, therefore, you will allow me to state how the fact is. Mr. C. Knight, in his Volume of Varieties, p. 178., observes:
"The Omnibus was tried about 1800, with four horses and six wheels; but we refused to accept it in any shape till we imported the fashion from Paris in 1830."