s yearly, to be
paid out of their town lands, for an annual lecture upon the
subject of witchcraft, to be preached at their town every
Lady-Day, by a doctor or bachelor of divinity, of Queen's
College, Cambridge."

Is this sum yet paid, and the sermon still preached, or has it fallen
into disuse now that it is unpopular to believe in witchcraft and
diabolic possession? Have any of the sermons been published?

EDWARD PEACOCK, Junior.

Bottesford, Kirton in Lindsey.

_Consort._--A former correspondent applied for a notice of Mons.
Consort, said to have been a mystical impostor similar to the famous
Cagliostro. I beg to renew the same inquiry.

A. N.

_Creole._--This word is variously represented in my Lexicons. Bailey
says, "The descendant of an European, born in America," and with him
agree the rest, with the exception of the _Metropolitana_; that
Encyclopaedia gives the meaning, "The descendant of an European and an
American Indian." A friend advocating the first meaning derives the word
from the Spanish. Another friend, in favour of the second meaning,
derives it originally from ~kerannumi~, _to mix_; which word is
fetched, perhaps far-fetched, from ~keras~, the horn in which
liquors are _mixed_. Light on this word would be acceptable.

GILBERT N. SMITH.

_Shearman Family._--Is there a family named _Shearman_ or _Sherman_ in
Yorkshire, or in the city of York? What are their arms? Is there any
record of any of that family settling in Ireland, in the county or city
of Kilkenny, about the middle of the seventeenth century, or at an
earlier period in Cork? Are there any genealogical records of them? Was
Robert Shearman, warden of the hospital of St. Cross in Winchester, of
that family? Was Roger Shearman, who signed the Declaration {382} of
American Independence, a member of same? Is there any record of three
brothers, Robert, Oliver, and Francis Shearman, coming to England in the
army of William the Conqueror?

JOHN F. SHEARMAN.

Kilkenny.

_Traitors' Ford._--There is a place called Traitors' Ford on the borders
of Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, near the source of the little river
Stour, about two miles from the village of Whichford, in the former
county. What is the origin of the name? There is no notice of it in
Dugdale's _Warwickshire_, nor is it mentioned in the older maps of the
county of Warwick. The vicinity to the field of Edge-Hill would lead one
to suppose it may be connect