Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/136

 1 04 Collectanea.

Royal Courts of Justice yesterday to render rent service on the part of the Corporation for certain property held from the Crown.

Proclamation was made in these terms: '• Tenants and occupiers of a piece of waste ground called ' The Moors ' in the county of Salop come forth and do your service." The City Solicitor then cut one faggot with a hatchet and another with a billhook. The next proclamation was: " Tenants and occupiers of a certain tenement called ' The Forge ' in the parish of St. Clements Danes, in the county of Middlesex, come forth and do your service." Upon this the City Solicitor counted six horse-shoes and 61 nails, the King's Remembrancer saying "Good number."

"The Forge," it is said, was pulled down by a mob during a riot in the reign of Richard II., and never restored. During the proceedings Sir John Macdonell said that the circumstances in which the ceremony originated were unknown. The only infor- mation which could be obtained arose from entries in the Rolls of the Exchequer. The ceremony had been observed for the last 700 years, and probably for a longer period. Some such cere- mony had been performed annually before the Barons of the Ex- chequer and his predecessors as King's Remembrancer. How it came about that the Corporation became seised of certain parcels of land in the county of Salop and how they passed out of their possession was not to be explained. The earliest entry on the subject was dated 1211. — The Times, 7th November, 1913.

Burning Camphor: A Strange Tamil Oath.

There was an interesting interlude in the Kuala Lumpur Police Court on Saturday during a case in which a Tamil was charged with attempting to crimp two coolies from Waddieburn Estate. One of the Tamil witnesses, a coolie on Waddieburn, said that the accused had asked him on the previous Thursday to go with him to Kuala Kubu on receiving his month's wages.

The accused denied this, and witness said that he was willing to swear a solemn oath that what he had said was true. On being asked what form the oath would take, he said that he