Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/484

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

begin. On this day the young men yoke themselves and draw a plough about with music, and one or two persons in antic dresses, like jack -puddings, go from house to house, to gather money to drink ; if you refuse them, they plough up. your dunghill. We call them here the plough bullocks."

Agricultural ceremonies at the beginning of the year have according to all accounts been customary from time immemorial amongst the Chinese, Per- sians, Greeks, &c., and in most of them the plough figured conspicuously. The Chinese custom is worth recording as a good specimen of such cus- toms, and no doubt as also one of the most ancient.

Every spring the Emperor goes in a solemn manner to plough up a few ridges of land in order to animate the husbandmen by his example, and in the neighbourhood of every other city but Pekin the mandarin performs the ceremony :

" On arrival at the field an offering is first made by the Emperor and all his court to Changti, to beseech him to increase and preserve the fruits of the earth ; this con- cluded, the Emperor, attended by three princes and nine presidents of sovereign courts, proceeds forward, several great men carrying a valuable chest, which contains the seed to be sown. The Emperor having taken the plough, and ploughed several times backwards and forwards, re- signs it to one of the princes of the blood, who does the same, as in succession do the rest. After having ploughed in several places the Emperor sows the different grain ; these are wheat, rice, millet, beans, and another kind of millet called cao-leang; and the day following the hus- bandmen finish the field, and are rewarded by the Em- peror with four pieces of dyed cotton for clothes. The Governor of Pekin often goes to visit the field, which is cultivated with great care, and if he finds at any time a stalk that bears thirteen ears it is esteemed a good omen."

" He also goes in autumn to get in the corn, which is put into yellow sacks and deposited in the imperial granary, only to be used on the most solemn occasions."

The customs throughout the English counties are various. Your country readers might furnish some interesting notes on the subject with very little trouble. E. W. HACKWOOD.

SUPPOSED DECISION OF THE GALLJCAN CHURCH UPON THE VALIDITY OF ENGLISH ORDERS.

(2 na S. i. 290.)

Being in Paris last April, and seeing on a friend's table " N. & Q." for the 12th of that month, I thought it a good opportunity to help the researches of MR. FHASER, who asks, " What other information may be obtained respecting this curiously arrived at decision ? " On looking into A Glance behind the Grilles, I found that M. L'abbe Mailly was the reverend gentleman cited as the authority for the statement set forth by the lady writer of that work, and quoted by MR. FRASER. I called at 26. Rue du Nord upon the Abbe, and showed him the whole passage in The Glance. M. Mailly at once assured me that it

contained several mistakes relating to what he had incidentally mentioned in the course of a short conversation upon a totally different subject, namely, the " Sisters of Charity." All that he did say was this : " About two years ago the question concerning Anglican Orders came to be chosen as the subject for one of those small con- ferences held monthly by the clergy of the good Abbe's own and a neighbouring parish, numbering no more than eighteen clergy altogether. The ' reporter ' on the occasion, that is, the priest who undertook to get up the subject to be discussed, laid before the conference the history of the question, and having noticed the arguments for and against, drew as. his conclusion that Anglican Ordination was, and had all along been, invalid no ordination at all. One of the clergy present, though not dissenting from the reporter's views, but merely for the purpose of raising, as usual, a discussion, stated some of the arguments brought forward by Courayer in behalf of the validity of English orders. But there the question dropped, and was no further mooted; and as every one present entirely agreed with the reporter's con- clusion, the conference unanimously decided with- out more to do, that there was no sort of validity in English orders. In the minutes of the con- ference this decision was recorded, and, along with the report of the question, forwarded to the ar- ehiepiscopal archives, wherein it may still be seen." Such is M. L'abbe Mailly's account of the bu- siness, and any one interested in the question may consult him at his residence, 26. Rue du Nord, Paris.

Besides these small monthly conferences, wherein the clergy of every two neighbouring parishes meet for the discussion of questions con- nected with Theology, Liturgy, Scripture, Church History, &c., there are at Paris four meetings in the year for the mooting of cases of conscience, to which all the clergy, amounting to about six hundred, are invited, though not obliged to at- tend. Such conferences are not peculiar to Paris or France, but are held in England, Ireland, America, in most, parts of the continent of Eu- rope, and, in general, throughout the Catholic Church.

As I well know there are several readers of " N. & Q." deeply interested in the question of Anglican Orders, I will add the following docu- ment, with a copy of which I was kindly favoured by a distinguished prelate in the pontifical court, while I was spending the winter at Rome, A.D. 1852-53. On the occasion of the Rt. Rev. Dr. Ives, titled the Protestant Bishop of North Carolina, U. S., coming to Rome to be reconciled to the church, the question of the validity of An- glican Orders awakened some attention among the English who happened to be there, and the con- sequence was the production from the archives of