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NOTES AND QUERIES, p* s. vn. JUNE 29, woi.

seats in the church there. It shows plainly enough the connexion of particular seats with certain dwelling-houses. For instance, a seat is assigned to John Thomas William, "for Tenements he houldeth in Crawnan"; George ap Richard Cradock, " for the lands of w'm phe' Howell, Now Rich. Creed"; Morgan Thomas Edward, "for Tir y gwair hir " (Long-Grass Land).

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS. Town Hall, Cardiff.

In this connexion the old and new churches at Marple, Cheshire, standing on adjacent sites, furnish interesting details. The pews in the old church are annexed to the sur- rounding farm holdings, but for various reasons -have ceased to be occupied by the tenants, and the rights therein could not be seized by the incumbent. This led to the building of the new church. In the old church the pews are owned, but not occupied. In the new church they are occupied, but not owned. At Kirk Lonan, Laxey, Isle of Man, the names of the estates are painted on the pew doors, not the names of the families occupying the pews. Lonan was a parish so far back as 1726. ARTHUR MAYALL.

John Southerden Burn in his ' History of Parish Registers in England,' under the head of 'Quorndon, Leicestershire,' gives the fol- lowing instance :

"Memorandum, April 25. 1730, George Colling- wood gave to John Chapman the foremost pew belonging to him the said George Collingwood in the church of Quorndon for his own proper use.

Thomas Allen, Clerk.

Edward Farnham." In a note :

"An old entry in a Vestry Book, stating that a pew had been repaired by the then owner of a messuage, has been admitted evidence of the right of a person claiming under him. Price v. Little- wood, 3 Campb., 288."

For reference to works on this subject see 'The History and Law of Church Seats or Pews,' by Alfred Heales, Proctor in Doctors' Commons, London, 1872. There is also a long and interesting article in All the Year Round, 25 August, 1888.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

There was one annexed to Halliford House, Lower Halliford, Shepperton- on -Thames, Middlesex, the house of my grandfather, Commodore James Jeakes, H.E.I. C.M., on whose riverside lawn was a "Napoleon willow" from St. Helena. The house is, I believe, now occupied by a member of the Rutter family. I remember being seated in one of these square pews (generally attached

to manor or other notable houses) at, I think, Preston, Brighton. The l Encyc. Diet.' quotes : " ' Pews in the church may descend by custom immemorial (without any ecclesiastical con- currence), from the ancestor to the heir.' Blackstone, * Commentaries,' bk. iii. ch. 28." THOMAS J. JEAKES.

MR. A.DDY-may probably find some infor- mation in ' The History and Law of Church Seats or Pews,' by Alfred Heales, F.S.A., Proctor in Doctors' Commons, two vols., But- ter worths, 1872. Cf. vol. i. chap, vi., ' Earliest Appropriations.' G. H. THOMPSON.

" COOST " (9 th S. vii. 445). There can be no doubt that the late Prof. Palgrave's interpre- tation of " coost " as carried was so weak as to be misleading. We may sometimes see the force of a word by taking another form and meaning as an illustration, and if we take the word " cast up," meaning " to bring up bygones," we have an idea of Maggie's intense feeling, though not of her precise bearing. Recrimination and disdain both indicate deep feeling. That there is an exception to this intensity when " cast up " is used merely in the sense of " reproach," as it is by Tennyson's Northern Farmer in describing the parson's remarks "'bout Bessy Marris's barne," does not make the weak interpretation of "coost" correct. But the farmer's vocabulary was limited, and perhaps the parson intended neither reproach nor " cast oop." ARTHUR MAYALL.

NEW ENGLAND DONATION-PARTY (9 th S. yii. 360). At this reference a reviewer, quoting from a book under notice, inserts the com- ment, "A New England donation - party [whatever that may be]." Until recently no one who ever spent even a year in New England outside its largest cities would have questioned the expression, for in all its rural and even suburban towns, during the first three-fourths of the last century, an annual donation-party was as much a part of estab- lished custom as Thanksgiving Day itself. Now, I suppose, it has fallen into " innocuous desuetude," unless in a few remote hamlets. Upon a selected day the parishioners of the clergyman whose family were to be the recipients carried to his house gifts of all kinds sometimes money, but more often vegetables, fruit, poultry, wood for the fires, clothing, household furnishings, or whatever seemed likely to be acceptable to the bene- ficiaries or of sufficient credit to the donors. There could be mentioned very few articles of household or personal use that have not somewhere appeared at these donations, and