Notes and Queries, Number 05, December 1, 1849Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 05, December 1, 1849
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
Mr. Editor,--Your No. 3. has just fallen into my hands, with the
wonderful account of Schultz's journey of fifty miles in six hours, a
hundred years ago. I am inclined to think the explanation consists in a
misprint. The distances are given in figures, and not in words at
length, if we may trust your correspondent's note on p. 35. May not a 1
have "dropped" before the 6, so that the true lection will be, "dass wir
auf dem ganzen Wege kaum 16 Stunden gefahren sind"? This time
corresponds with the time of return, on which he set out in the evening
(at 8?) of one day and arrived at noon the next. It was also most likely
that the spring carriages of fifteen years later date should go much
faster than the old springless vehicles. Any one who has corrected
proofs will appreciate the "dropping" of a single type, and may be ready
to admit it on such circumstantial evidence.
I may remark that 1749 was still Old Style in England; but the German
Schultz, in dating his expedition on _Sunday_, 10 Aug. 1749, has used
the _New Style_, then prevalent in Germany. Sunday, 10 Aug. 1749, O.S.,
was on Thursday, 31 July, 1749, N.S. The York coach-bill cited on the
same page is in O.S.
Is not "_Stäts_-Kutsche," in the same communication, a misprint?
A.J.E.
G.G. has perhaps a little overrated the import of the passage he quotes
from Schultz's travels. "_Dass wir kaum 6 Stunden gefahren sind_"--even
supposing there is no misprint of a 6 for an 8 or 9, which is quite
possible--will not, I apprehend, bear the meaning he collects from the
words, viz. that _the journey occupied no more than six hours_, or less
even than so much.
In the first place, I believe it will be allowed by those familiar with
German idioms, that the phrase _kaum 6 Stunden_, is not to be rendered
as though it meant _no more or less than 6_; but rather thus: "but
little more than 6;"--the "_little more_," in this indefinite form of
expression, being a very uncertain quantity, it may be an hour or so.
Then he says merely that they "kaum 6 Stunden _gefahren_ sind," which
may mean that the time _actually spent in motion_ did not exceed the
number of hours indicated, whatever that may be; and not that the
journey itself, "_including stoppages_," took up no more. Had he meant
to say this, I imagine he would have used a totally different phrase: e.
g. _dass wir binnen kaum mehr als 6 Stunden nach London schön gekommen
sind;_ or something like these words.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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