Post by Ann on Apr 21, 2007 19:52:05 GMT
I just happened to be in Rothbury on Wednesday with a couple of friends and just happened to catch the viewing of the book auction that was taking place at the mart there later in the week! I couldn't resist leaving a bid for a book published in 1810 and called "The New Family Receipt-Book". It isn't a cookery book although there are a few culinary recipes; the receipts are for all kinds of things including "How to attract earwigs out of the ear", "Method of building grottos at very little expence" (sic), "Thunder Powder".
Having left the bid, I didn't think very much more about it. The buyer from Barter Books, a huge secondhand bookshop in Alnwick (which Gill knows well!), has a reputation for sweeping all before him and simply outbidding any opposition, so I didn't think I had a snowball's chance of getting it. It was a bit of a surprise when I got home on Thursday then to find a message on my answerphone telling me I was the winning bidder! I picked it up earlier today and here, for everyone's information (you never know when it might be useful) is the answer to ventilating a stage coach!
"The plan is to have a hole perforated through the centre of the roof of the carriage, of three inches diameter, with a tube or chimney, one or two inches long above the top of the same; into which tube a fine grating might be fixed, if necessary, to prevent the outside passengers putting any thing through. A slide might also be placed in a groove within the carriage, to enable the inside passengers to close the tube at pleasure."
It seems that people are the same whatever the age - I had a mental picture of the passengers on the roof of the stage coach feeding all sorts of rubbish down the tube if there was no deterrent!
Having left the bid, I didn't think very much more about it. The buyer from Barter Books, a huge secondhand bookshop in Alnwick (which Gill knows well!), has a reputation for sweeping all before him and simply outbidding any opposition, so I didn't think I had a snowball's chance of getting it. It was a bit of a surprise when I got home on Thursday then to find a message on my answerphone telling me I was the winning bidder! I picked it up earlier today and here, for everyone's information (you never know when it might be useful) is the answer to ventilating a stage coach!
"The plan is to have a hole perforated through the centre of the roof of the carriage, of three inches diameter, with a tube or chimney, one or two inches long above the top of the same; into which tube a fine grating might be fixed, if necessary, to prevent the outside passengers putting any thing through. A slide might also be placed in a groove within the carriage, to enable the inside passengers to close the tube at pleasure."
It seems that people are the same whatever the age - I had a mental picture of the passengers on the roof of the stage coach feeding all sorts of rubbish down the tube if there was no deterrent!
