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NOTES AND QUERIES. e> th s. XIL SEPT. 12, 1903.

frequent, but not the less were free quarters ob- tained. It was notorious that officers refused, or purposely forgot, to give the certificates; and whole regiments marched out of towns without paying for their quarters. It was after investigations into complaints of this sort by injured civilians, that in

1695 a [Royal] Proclamation was published

directing that for the future, upon arrival of any troops in a place, publication was to be immediately made by sound of trumpet or beat of drum that 'no officer or soldier be trusted in their quarters beyond the rates that have been or shall be pre- scribed by Act of Parliament.' This process is still practised, and is termed 'Crying down credit.' "

W. S.

The Graphic of 15 August, the date of the latter of the two references to 'N. & Q.,' contains an article on 4 Army Bands,' which thus concludes :

"One of the peculiarities attaching to a regimental band is its function of marching through the prin- cipal streets of any town the regiment first arrives at in garrison playing what is known as the ' Credit Down.' The supposition is that, once this is done, no tradesman can recover a debt from any member of such regiment. Whether such a view of the law as to the recovery of debts has ever been put to test the writer does not know, but that it would hold good is certain. If not, the custom should be abolished, for it is simply making a circus parade of His Majesty's Army." P. 225.

Is any particular melody consecrate to such occasions? ST. SWITHIN.

MARRIAGE IN A SHEET (9 th S. xii. 146). There is an interesting chapter on ' Marrying in a White Sheet' to be found in Old Church Lore,' by William Andrews, F.R.H.S. (1891).

JOHN T. PAGE.

BREAKING THE GLASS AT JEWISH WED- DINGS (9 th S. xii. 46, 115). For aught I know to the contrary MR. DAVIS is quite sound in his association of those sentimental ideas. The juxtaposition seems natural and almost inevitable. According to him it has a different role from that of the skeleton at Egyptian feasts. In actual practice I am afraid it is not so at all. I am afraid the smashing of the glass has but a momentary influence upon the spectators. Far from depressing, it in- variably exhilarates them. It acts rather as a signal for pent-up feelings to find a vent, feelings that have been bottled up during the prolonged service. The buzz of conversation and the hum of movement are once more set going. As to the bridegrooms, countless numbers crush the glass with such uncon- cealed gusto and with such triumphant alacrity that it is difficult to imagine such sombre ideas as the destruction of Jerusalem or the loss of nationality were oppressing them at all. If MR. DAVIS had made out a case for the frailty of all human ties or con-

tracts I could have followed him, as I hold, with the author of l Evolution of Marriage/ that this institution has ascended, like animal structures, by slow evolutionary processes from a cell-like atom to a perfect organism. He has, however, associated the glass with loss of nationality. This calls for some criticism. For my own part, if I fancied MR. DAVIS was absolutely correct in his reading, then, whenever I was called upon to perform the dramatic office, I should pub- licly refuse to play that trump card, even though I lost the lady at the venture, would not break the glass. For I should feel that at that most interesting stage in my career I was breaking faith with my country- men, who had conferred upon me the price- less boons of citizenship, &c., on the tacit understanding that I was going to settle down to my home and heritage in the spirit of a Briton, and with the stedfast love of a freeholder for his estate, and not with the roving disposition of a gipsy, prepared to strike my tent at the bidding of any idealist pointing Zionwards as my proper home and habitat. It is really time, then, for English Jews to cast off this last slough of Bedouinism, if such ideas are symbolized by this breaking of the glass. Personally I do not believe there exists any inter-relation of that sort between these two sets of ideas at all.

M. L. R. BRESLAR.

DRAYTON'S ' POLY-OLBION' (9 th S. xii. 102). Being one of those who occupy their " time on toys, idle questions, and things of no worth," I have taken the trouble to add up the number of lines in the ' Poly - olbion, 7 and find MR. CURRY'S conjecture as to the enormous exaggeration of Hal lam fully con- firmed. The total number of lines is 14,718, including the Arguments, being an average of 490 lines to each canto, only two of which, the twenty-second and twenty-fourth, exceed 1,000 lines. I may add that, thanks to the facilities afforded by the Rev. Richard Hooper's edition of 1876, giving the number of lines in each canto, the labour of counting was very trifling. J. F. FRY.

Upton, Didcot.

JOHN HARRIS, PUBLISHER (9 th S. xii. 106). The " Bible and Sun," not the " Bible and Crown," was the sign of John Harris in St. Paul's Churchyard, the successor of John Newbery. The "Bible and Crown" was a sign which appertained to C. Rivington in St. Paul's Churchyard. It is, perhaps, un- necessary to cite the numerous instances of Newbery's and Rivington's mid-eighteenth- century advertisements substantiating this.