Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/328

300 suddenly twitched off his bed at night and carried up to the ceiling; also he felt something like a cat jumping up on his bed, and the neighbours used to hear somebody rapping on their windows at night, and telling them it was time to wake up. Mr. V. had to go up to the cottage and lay the ghost in the traditional manner, after which the manifestations apparently ceased. A short time ago he was calling on a certain Mrs. C, and she told him that she was sure that this old woman was a witch, as some time before she died one of the neighbours called on her and found her feeding her niggets.

Mr. V.—"Oh, what are niggets?"

Mrs. C.—"Why those creepy-crawly things that witches keep all over them. She was sitting down with her niggets all round her, feeding them with little bits of grass all chopped up."

Mr. V. surmises that a nigget is a kind of familiar spirit. Fancy such things going on forty miles from London.—The Times, 3rd September, 1915.

With picturesque ceremony Earl Beauchamp was installed at Dover yesterday as Constable of Dover Castle, Lord Warden and Admiral of the Cinque Ports. The first portion of the ceremony was the assemblage at the Castle of the representative Barons from the fourteen towns in the federation, the Cinque Ports of Hastings, Dover, Sandwich, Hythe, Romney; the ancient towns of Rye and Winchelsea, and the "limbs," Ramsgate, Margate, Deal, Tenterden, Folkestone, Faversham, and Lydd. The gorgeous uniforms worn by the Barons at the King's Coronation, together with the quaint dresses of the mace-sergeants and other officials, made a striking feature. The Lord Warden wore a naval uniform with scarlet collar and cuffs. Troops, bluejackets, and Territorials lined the whole route taken by the procession. After the roll-call of the Barons in the ancient banqueting hall at the Castle a short service was held in the Castle Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury officiating. The long procession wended its way through