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NOTES AND QUERIES. p* s. x. NOV. a, MOB.

Sons, London, 1902), from which the following may be quoted :

"What is the upshot of it all? The evidence seems to show that, whatever was Napoleon's condition before the campaign, he was in his usual health amidst the stern joys of war. And this is consonant with his previous experience ; he throve on events which wore ordinary beings to the bone ; the one thing he could not endure was the worry of parliamentary opposition, which aroused a nervous irritation not to be controlled and con- cealed without infinite effort. During the campaign we find very few trustworthy proofs of his decline, and much that points to energy of resolve and great rallying power after exertion. If he was suffering from three illnesses, they were assuredly of a highly intermittent nature."

HENKY GERALD HOPE.

I have read somewhere that Napoleon is supposed to have lost the battle of Leipzig, in 1811, from having eaten too much of his favourite dish, a leg of mutton stuffed with onions. Count Segur thinks, in his 'Expedi- tion to Russia,' that years had begun to tell their tale upon Napoleon, and that he was not at that time like the hero of Austerlitz and Jena. Still he was only forty-five or forty-six. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

IRISH SAYING ON MICHAELMAS DAY (9 th S. x. 328). In my notes on the folk-lore of Northamptonshire I have recorded the follow- ing : " Never eat blackberries after Michael- mas Day, as after then the Devil puts his mark upon them." This saying is current in Northamptonshire and also in Warwickshire, but I have never been able to find put its origin. If it emanated from Ireland, it may have been brought here by the Irish reapers who, something less than half a century ago, used to come over and help in cutting the harvest. JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

I have never been in Ireland, but have been familiar with this saying all my life. I have always understood it to refer to the undoubted fact that, as a general rule, October black- berries are comparatively poor and taste- less. C. C. B.

Kindred sayings are "September, blow soft till the fruit's in the loft," and "A Michaelmas rot comes ne'er in the pot" (Ray).

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

A SEXTON'S TOMBSTONE (9 th S. x. 306, 373). Another inscription on the tombstone of a sexton, worth recording, is in the churchyard of the parish church, Bingley, and is in memory of Hezekiah Briggs, who died in 1844, aged eighty. He was sexton of the church for forty-three years, and his tomb-

stone records that during his long tenure of office he assisted at no fewer than 7,000 interments. His epitaph is as follows :

Here lies an old ringer beneath this cold clay, Who has rung many peals both for serious and gay, Bob majors and trebles with ease he could bang Till death called a " bob," which brought the last clang.

CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D.

"LICENCE TO DEPART" (9 th S. x. 368). Labourers of either sex were prohibited as early as 1388 by statute (12 Rich. II., c. 3) from changing abode or place of service with- out a letter patent under the king's seal declaring the cause of their departure. But this statute, repealed by Elizabeth, is not that about which MR. NORMAN inquires. Nor was the latter begotten of the Caroline troubles It was, indeed, an Elizabethan enactment of 1562 (5 Eliz., cap. 4), entitled "An Act touching dyvers orders for artificers, labourers, servantes of husbandrye, and apprentices," and professing to be, as it would now be called, a consolidation Act. It provided (ss. 10 and 11) that no person having served in one city or town could take service in another without a testimonial or certificate drawn up in the form " Memoran- dum, That," &c, as quoted by your corre- spondent, and " registred by the parson, vicar or curate of the parish" where he dwelt. These are the words of the Act ; MR. NORMAN will therefore see that his note against " curate" is needless.* The penalty for " every such servant so departing without such certificate or testimonial " was imprisonment until he procured one ; if he failed to do this " within the space of one and twenty days next after the first day of his imprisonment," or showed a false certificate, he was to be " used and whipped as a vagabond." There was also a fine of 5l. for any person who engaged him without certificate. It was hoped that the effect of the Act would be, in the words of the preamble, to " banish idle- ness, advance husbandry," &c. This statute was not repealed until 1875 (38 & 39 Viet., c. 86, s. 17). F. ADAMS.

[The sic was inserted in MR. NORMAN'S quotation as Rob. Browne seemed to describe himself first as churchwarden and then as curate.]

Up to the beginning of the nineteenth jentury, and later, it was still the custom in STorthumberland to grant a clearance, or icence, similar to the Norfolk example, but somewhat abbreviated in form. These licences, commonly spoken of as "lines," were given by an employer at thp end of the year's


 * " Churchwarden," too, is statutory (s. 11).