One Minute Quiz
pp. 80-89 · Read in the full issue
1. Even if you have never visited London, you have heard of the Lon don Mews. Situated in hack streets and lanes, they are the old stables of the great houses of a by-gone age. In this day of the motor car, the mews have been converted to other purposes—often to fashion able . dwelling places for the arty fraternity. You know all this, but do you know where the term “mews” originated? 2. Occasionally you hear it said of a sailor that he “came up from the fo’castle” —meaning that he started life as an ordinary seaman whose quarters (before the post-war era which has given greater con sideration to the comfort of the AB at sea) were down in the bows of the ship. Although the word is> pronounced “fo-castle,” it should be written “forecastle.” Why is this word applied to this forward part of a ship?
(Answers on Page 87)
1. A mews was originally the place where the King kept his hunting hawks confined —or mewed up. The first Royal Mews was near Charing Cross, but in Henry VIII’s day the Royal stables burned down and Henry put his horses in with his hawks. Hawking declined in favour, and mews became associated with horses.
When new stables were built behind Buckingham Palace for George IV, about 200 years later, the name still stuck. The horses which Queeh Elizabeth uses on State occasions are stabled in the same Royal Mews. 2. When England first engaged in naval battles, the ships in use were only modifi cations of the old Viking ships and the most deadly weapon was still the bow and arrow. To enable the archers to operate, castle-like platforms were built at bow, stern and sometimes amidships.
“Forecastle’ is still the name given to that part of thef bow of a ship.
Construction of the New Bank of New Zealand building in Apia on the corner of Beach Road and Post Office Road, next to the new Methodist Church, has commenced.
At a ceremony in January, the President of the Apia Chamber of Commerce, Mr. H. Gow, turned the first sod. The new building, con struction of which is supervised by Mr. L. A. Pearson, who ouilt the adjoining church, will be a two storied concrete structure, esti mated to cost about £38,000.