As THRANG AS THROP'S WIFE.
In reply to the query in last week's Spectator, the above is an old saying, current generally in the North Country. In Northumberland they say (or did say) "As flirting as Throp's wife when she hanged herself wi' the dish-cloot.' In West Yorks, "As thrang as Throop wife when she hanged herself in her garter." The saying occurs all over Lancashire and in Lakeland, Durham and Derbyshire. In North Lincs, it is "used to describe a woman who is forever busying herself about domestic affairs, but whose house and surroundings are nevertheless always in a mess "—in fact a fussy, dis- orderly Martha. See Kirkby's Granite Chips (1900), 12, and Waugh's Sneck-Bant (1868), ii. But who Throp or Throop or Thrap or Thorp was is " ropt in mistry."—M. J. C. M.
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