Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/63

 9* 8. XL JAK. 17, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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chaplain of the Emanuel (Lady Dacre's Almshouses, MR. JOHN W. BONE, F.S.A., anc myself, and may perhaps convey some useful information. With reference to the old parish pound house, I am glad that the approximate date of its removal has been mentioned, but it was too far back for me to allude to it at the time I made the note, and the same remarks apply to Palmer's Village, which went about 1849-51. I would put upon record that in the Westminster Working Men's Exhibition, held in Victoria Street in 1879, there was a very correct model of the old pound house buildings exhibited, about which I have often made inquiries, but without being able to hear anything about it. It seemed to be spirited away as soon as the building was closed. It would be of much interest to have it, as I do not know of any pictorial illustration of the building, although there may have been at the time it was done away with.

W. E. HAELAND-OXLEY. C2, The Almshouses, Rochester Row, S.W.

MORDAUNT COLLEGE (9 th S. x. 509). There is a domestic chapel in this institution (Mor- den College, Blackheath), and it may be that some registers exist in connexion with it. J. M. T. would do well to inquire as to this. Possibly the vicar of Kidbrook might help him to a solution of the difficulty.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

CROSSING THE LINE (9 th x. 409). I have a number of references to the custom of bap- tism when crossing the line the earliest 1665, in Souchou de Rennefort, * Histoire des Indes Orientales,' edit. Leyden, 1688, pp. 42-4. . Osbeck in his 'Voyage to China,' London, 1771, p. 107, says the custom was observed 11 April, 1751, and remarks that the ceremony was usual in 1642, giving as authority Holms's 'Description of New Sweden.'

An account of the origin or antiquity of the custom will be found in Lieut. Bassett's 'Legends and Superstitions of the Sea and Sailors,' London (? Chicago), 1885, pp. 416-20 (and references). See also Chambers's ' Book of Days,' vol. ii. pp. 653-4. Daniell has a fine picture of the subject (1790) in his 'Voyage to India,' London, 1810.

Instances of the performance of the cere- mony when crossing the tropic of Cancer are recorded in Butter worth's 'Three Years' Ad- ventures of a Minor,' Leeds, 1831, pp. 14-19 (this was about the year 1800), and in Spils- bury's ' Voyage along the Western Coast of Africa,' in H.M.S. Favourite (1 November, 1805), London, Phillips, 1807, pp. 10-12, with two plates illustrating the ceremony.

I have also noted an instance of the custom when crossing the line in the Pacific (end of 1802) in Turnbull's 'Voyage,' 1813, pp. 195-8. E. A. PETHERICK.

PRE- REFORMATION PRACTICES IN ENGLISH CHURCHES (9 th S. x. 468). I have always understood the following were pre-Reforma- tion customs. The men in country villages never go into church with their women folk, because in early days there were separate doors for the sexes. The custom of ringing a peal early on Easter morn at dawn is still followed at Ufton, Berks. The curfew still rings in many places Pickering, Yorks, for instance. The custom of tolling the age at funerals ; the passing bell ; the custom of wrapping up the prayer-book in a hand- kerchief to carry to church, with a sprig of rosemary ; and the turning to the east in the Creed are all survivals of pre-Reformation customs. Probably, if I thought, I might remember some more.

(Mrs.) J. HAUTENVILLE COPE.

13c, Hyde Park Mansions, W.

The most common of these surviving usages is the "bob" or curtsey made, on entering hurch, towards the Communion Table, and vidently handed down from the time when the Blessed Sacrament was reserved over the altar. The linen " houselling " cloths still used at times of Holy Communion at St. Mary's, Oxford, and Wimborne Minster, are also derived from ancient Catholic practice. So with bells. In my native village it was customary, and perhaps is so still, to ring a few strokes of the bell after morning service, or at noon if there.was no morning prayer. No one knew why this was done, but it was probably a reminiscent survival of the " sacring " bell (afterwards called "sermon" bell), which used to be struck few times at the elevation of the Host.

FRANCIS KING.

The Rev. W. K. Burnett, vicar of Kelloe, recently informed me that he had often noticed men on entering the village church, ind after taking off their hats, apparently smoothing their foreheads. He is of opinion practice of crossing. Perhaps some of your
 * hat this is all that remains of the old
 * orrespondents can say if this be so.

R. B-R.

Such survivals, though few, and in them- selves trifling, possess considerable anti- quarian interest. In some remote parishes of Wales the old women still "bob" to the site of the high altar on entering the church. At Kid welly, Carmarthenshire, they used to make obeisanqe to the beautiful fourteenth-