in the sense of need, as in this direction given a traveller: "Ye'll want to get on the bank for the gainest way to Wainfleet." How many times have I heard language like this which the mistress is reported as having used to her maids: "That little dish wants to go down into the dairy." Very likely, in my home, that little dish would have been a keeler, which is said to be a Norfolk article with a Norfolk name.
      It is said by English writers, that the prefix "well," betrays a man of Birmingham wherever you may meet him; as, "Well, how are you?" I have met with the same observation made in regard to the people of Cumberland. It is needless to remark upon the frequency of its use in New England.
      An old Northumberland radical is reported as saying to a gentleman who was travelling through that county, "You genelmen up in Lunnon wants settin' to rights a bit." The expression "settin' to rights" would strike the Yankee ear with a familiar sound. It is of our vernacular, and was that of our fathers when they were settin' things to rights in Old England. The verb to set is said to be used in Herefordshire for to let. This use of the word is, perhaps, not known among us, but we have the expression, "to set a boat;" and Mr. Davies says this is the phrase used on the Norfolk broads. The Thames waterman says to punt instead of to set. There is a curious analogy suggested here. The setting-pole, as it would be called on the Songo, is called the quant on the English broads. This word is pretty clearly the Roman contus, a pole, Anglicized. The query is, May not punt be a form of quant, just the same as popina is only a form of coquina?
      A Yorkshire lad of the North Riding had been taken by his uncle to see the sea at Blackpool. Upon his return home, he was asked what were his impressions, and he replied, "That capt me, that did!" Elsewhere in the same county a rustic is represented as exclaiming, "Eh! That caps me." The New-Englander uses the very same expression, or varies it to the form, "That puts on the cap-sheaf!" The figure is every way rural. It has reference to the putting the last sheaf upon the stook or shock of bundles in the field, and this done in such a way as to cover them all and keep out the rain. When Down-Easters are engaged in swapping stories, or in cracking jokes, the last effort which is admitted to be unmatched for wit or extravagance is called the cap-sheaf.
      Mr. Hissey, in his "Chronicle of the Coach," admits that he finds words in use among the rural population of England, which are commonly supposed to be of American origin. Pie says, "We heard occasionally what we may call a New-Englandism, as fall for autumn, emmet for ant, dogs for andirons, heft for weight, etc." Try to account for any one of these words in New England, and you are taken back to Old England by the most direct route imaginable. A writer in "Nature" of last December