by carrying the engagement to pay money or deliver
shares over to the next account-day. Can your correspondents say from
whence derived?

AGMOND.

_Pedigree to the Time of Alfred._--Wapshott, a blacksmith in Chertsey,
holds lands held by his ancestors temp. Alfred (McCulloch's _Highlands_,
vol. iv. p. 410.). Can this statement be confirmed in 1853?

A. C.

"_Service is no inheritance._"--Will you or any of your readers have the
goodness to inform me {587} what is the origin of the adage occurring twice
in the _Waverley Novels_, thus:

"Service, I wot, is no inheritance now-a-days; some are wiser than
other some," &c. (See _Peveril of the Peak_, chap. xiv.)

and

"Ay, St. Ronan's, that is a' very true,--but service is nae
inheritance, and as for friendship it begins at hame."--_St. Ronan's
Well_, chap. x.

I have seen a stone in an old building in the north of Scotland, with the
following inscription, cut in letters of an ancient form: "Be gude in
office, or (or perhaps 'for,' part of the stone being here broken off)
servitude is no inheritance to none." And I am curious to know the origin
of this proverb, so similar to that put by Sir Walter Scott in the mouths
of two of his homely characters; the one English and the other Scotch. An
answer will very much oblige

G. M. T.

Edinburgh.

_Antiquity of Fire-irons._--In an old book, published 1660, I met with the
following couplet:

"The burnt child dreads the fire; if this be true,
Who first invented tongs its fury knew."

Query, When were fire-irons first used?

ALIQUIS.

_General Wolfe at Nantwich._--I observe in the pamphlet entitled
_Historical Facts connected with Nantwich and its Neighbourhood_, lately
referred to in "N. & Q.," it is stated that according to local tradition
General Wolfe, the hero of Quebec, may in his boyhood have lived in the Yew
Tree House, near Stoke Hall. Now as this brave warrior was a native of
Kent, it is scarcely probable he would have been a visitor at the house
alluded to, unless he had relatives who resided there. Is he known to have
had any family connexion in that quarter, since the fact of his having had
such, if established, would tend to confirm the traditionary statement
respecting his domicile at the Yew Tree House?

T. P. L.

Manchester.

_"Corporations have no Souls," &c._--It was once remarked that public
corporations, companies, &c. do harsh things compared with what individuals