GOTHAM.
Chicago, Ill.
Why is New York City called “Gotham?” What is the origin and meaning of Gotham?
J. C. Starr.
Answer.—In “Salmagundi,” a humorous work written by Washington Irving, his brother William, and James K. Paulding, this name is applied to New York, to suit the purpose of the authors in representing the inhabitants as given to undue pretensions to wisdom. Of course, the allusion is to the inhabitants of Gotham, a parish in Nottinghamshire, England, who were as remarkable for their stupidity as for their conceit. All the follies of English wiseacres were attributed to them. Fuller says: “The proverb of ‘as wise as a man of Gotham’ passeth publicly for the periphrasis of a fool; and a hundred fopperies are forged and fathered on the townsfolk of Gotham.” It was said that when King John was about to pass through Gotham toward Nottingham he was prevented by the inhabitants, who thought that the ground over which a king passed became forever a public road. When the King sent to punish them they resorted to an expedient to avert their sovereign’s wrath. According to this, when the avengers arrived they found the people each engaged in some foolish occupation or other, so that the King’s messengers returned to court and reported that Gotham was a village of fools. In time a book appeared, entitled “Certain Merry Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham,” compiled in the reign of Henry VIII., by Andrew Borde, a sort of traveling quack, from whom the occupation of the “Merry Andrew” is said to be derived. Among these tales is the story of “The Three Wise Men of Gotham,” who went to sea in a bowl. The book had a wonderful sale. Walpole attributed it to Lucas de Heere, a Flemish painter, resident in England in the time of Queen Elizabeth, but the weight of evidence is in favor of Borde’s being the author, or compiler, it being mostly a compilation of popular legends even then from four to five hundred years old.
ST. PETER’S AND COLOGNE CATHEDRAL.
Fox Lake, Wis.
Which is larger, St. Peter’s Cathedral or the cathedral at Cologne? Please give the dimensions of both.