Captain Cuttle's Mailbag

Edward Welch, Matt Wiegle, Sally Madden

How did the Honorable Miss E. St. Leger become a Freemason? Did Lord Byron meet a hippopotamus, or was it only a tapir? Whence the popular prejudice against redheads? These were among the topics discussed in the pages of Notes and Queries, a weekly magazine founded in London in 1849 as "a medium of inter-communication for literary men, artists, antiquaries, genealogists, etc." Its motto was "When found, make a note of"--a saying of Captain Cuttle, the hook-handed old salt of Dickens's Dombey and Son. Some subscribers to Notes and Queries contributed brief notes on curious facts they had uncovered; other sent in arcane queries to be answered. The result was rather like an erudite Internet discussion board, complete with its flame wars and trolls.