Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/622

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VHI. DEC. 28, 1907.

them. Of their magazine writing Miss Larcom says :

" It was a perfectly natural outgrowth of those

girls' previous life Our composite photograph,

had it been taken, would have been the representa- tive New England girlhood of those days. We had all been fairly educated at public or private schools, and many of us were resolutely bent upon obtaining

a better education For twenty years or so,

Lowell might have been looked upon as a rather select industrial school for young people. The girls there were just such girls as are knocking at the doors of young women's colleges to-day. They had

come to work with their hands, but their mental

activity was overflowing at every possible outlet. Many of them were supporting themselves at schools like Bradford Academy or Ipswich Semi- nary half the year by working in the mills the other half. Mount Holyoke Seminary broke upon the thoughts of many as a vision of hope, and mean- while they were improving themselves by pur- chasing and reading standard books, by attending lectures and evening classes, and by meeting for reading. That they should write was no more strange than that they should study, or read, or think."

If the limits of space would allow me to give the titles of even a part of the books Miss Larcom mentions as those read either by herself or in the " Improvement Circle," I think Civis would experience a fresh sur- prise. Certainly the list surprises me, familiar as I am with the general acquaint- ance with the good literature of the day that prevailed in the New England of a somewhat later date.

That all the mill-workers were of a literary bent is, of course, not to be understood; but the average of intelligence may perhaps be judged by the fact, told by Miss Larcom, that when an agent from the then rapidly settling " Middle West " came eastward for school teachers, he was told by one of the clergymen of the town that five hundred could easily be supplied from among the Lowell millgirls.

I have replied to the query at some length, because, outside of the little book quoted (written for young people nearly twenty years ago), it is not, I think, easy to find a record of a long-past day and of conditions that no longer exist. M. C. L.

New York.

' THE POLITICAL HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT (10 S. viii. 485). I may add to my note that a decade later, when the Reform Bill agitation occasioned a fresh outburst of these satires, the following parodies of the old lines were produced :

7. The Reform Bill ! Printed for John Lowndes, at the office of C. F. Pitman, 48, Gutter Lane, Cheapside.

Published shortly after November, 1831.

The Thirteen Wood Engravings after original Designs by W. H. Brewer, are strongly suggestive of George Cruikshank's illustra- tions to Hone's pamphlet.

8. The Tories' Refuge for the Destitute ; or, Political Advertiser, and the House of Reform that Jack Built. Printed by Charles Hicks, Wine Office ~!ourt, for Effingham Wilson, 88, Royal Exchange.

With woodcuts after W. Horngold.

ALECK ABRAHAMS-

39, Hilmarton Road, N.

MEN OF FAMILY AS PARISH CLERKS (10 S, viii. 448). It was common in Scotland,, prior to the Reformation, for members of landed families of old descent to act as parish clerks. Walter Buchanan of Spittal, who died after 1538, son of Walter Buchanan of Buchanan, held the office of parish clerk of Killearn, Stirlingshire, an appointment, says the ' Buchanan Statement,' Edinburgh,. 1828,

"which seems to have been of some consideration, and even an object of ambition to wealthy andi reputable families, while the Roman Catholic religion predominated in Scotland." The particular office mentioned was con- tinued in the family of Spittal by new elec- tions during the two succeeding generations. Walter, designated an honorabilis vir, re- signed the office in 1531, and his son Edward, who is called providus adolescens, was elected in his place. Robert Buchanan of Spittal, son of Edward, was next appointed in 1551, and is styled generosus juvenis in the instru- ment of election.

Members of the families of Maxwell of Breidland, and of Stewart of Wyndelaw, were respectively parish clerks of Neilston and Carmunnock.

James, Marquis of Hamilton, was in 1625 served heir to his father " in terris et baronia de Evendaill cum advocatione ecclesiarum et officiorum parochialium clericatuum."

The custody of the consecrated vessels formed part of the charges committed to the parish clerk, and he was responsible for various other duties. In 1542 William Stewart, of the Wyndelaw family before referred to, prosecuted certain individuals " for spoliation frae him of his haly-watter fleske and stoupe." J. L. ANDERSON.

Edinburgh.

Of my predecessors in this office in con- nexion with the united parishes of SS. Anne and Agnes and St. John Zachary, London, two at least deserve mention under the above heading. One of these is Francis Cluet, clerk of St. Anne's (the parishes then existing separately) temp. Charles I., who-