[We are obliged to our correspondent and also to our witty
contemporary for this testimony to our omniscience, and show our
sense of their kindness by giving them two explanations. The
first is, the story which has been told of its originating with
a person who kept a house for the sale of toys and rags in
Norton Falgate some century since, to whom an old woman brought
a large bundle of rags for sale, with a desire that it might
remain unopened until she could call again to see it weighed.
Several weeks having elapsed without her re-appearance, the
ragman opened the bundle, and finding in it a _black doll_
neatly dressed, with a pair of gold ear-rings, hung it over his
door, for the purpose of its being owned by the woman who had
left it. The plan succeeded, and the woman, who had by means of
the black doll recovered her bundle of rags, presented it to the
dealer; and the story becoming known, the black doll was adopted
as the favourite sign of this class of shopkeepers. Such is the
romance of the black doll; the reality, we believe, will be
found in the fact, that cast-off clothes having been formerly
purchased by dealers in large quantities, for the purpose of
being resold to merchants, to be exchanged by them in traffic
with the uncivilised tribes, who, it is known, will barter any
thing for articles of finery,--a black doll, gaily dressed out,
was adopted as the sign of such dealers in old apparel.]
_Journal of Sir William Beeston._--In reply to the inquiry of "C." (No.
25. p. 400), I can state that a journal of Sir William Beeston is now
preserved in the British Museum (MS. Add. 12,424.), and was presented to
the national collection in 1842, by Charles Edward Long, Esq. It is a
folio volume, entirely autograph, and extends from Dec. 10, 1671, when
Beeston was in command of the Assistance frigate in the West Indies, to
July 21, 1673; then from July 6 to September 6, 1680, in a voyage from
Port Royal to London; and from December 19, 1692, to March 9, 1692-3, in
returning from Portsmouth to Jamaica; and, lastly, from April 25 to June
28, 1702, in coming home from Jamaica to England. By a note written by
Mr. Long on the fly-leaf of the volume, it appears that Sir William
Beeston was baptized in Dec. 2, 1636, at Titchfield, co. Hants, and was
the second son of William Beeston, of Posbrooke, the same parish, by
Elizabeth, daughter of Arthur Bromfield. (See _Visit. C. 19. Coll.
Arm._) His elder brother, Henry, was Master of Winchester, and Warden of
New College; and his daughter and heir Jane married, first, Sir Thomas
Modyford, Bart., and, secondly, Charles Long, to whom she was a second
wife. To this may be added, that Sir William received the honour of
knighthood at Kensington, October 30, 1692, and was Governor of Jamaica
from 1693 till 1700. In the Add. MS. {445} 12,430. is contained a
narrative, by Sir William Beeston, of the descent by the French on
Jamaica, in June, 1694; as also the copy of a Journal kept by Col.
William Beeston from his first coming to Jamaica, 1655-1680.