_Fogie_ (Vol. viii., pp. 154. 256.).--In the citadel of Plymouth, some
twenty or twenty-five years since, there was a band of old soldiers
(principally men of small stature) who went by this name. They were said to
be the only men acquainted with all the windings and outlets of the
subterranean passages of this fortification.
The cognomen "old fogie" is in this neighbourhood frequently applied to old
men remarkable for shrewdness, cunning, quaintness, or eccentricity. This
use of the term is evidently figurative, borrowed from its application to
veteran soldiers. Cannot some of the military correspondents of "N. & Q."
give the origin of the word?