Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/373

 9" s. ix. MAY 10 1902.) NOTES AND QUERIES.

365

singing the 'Hymnus Eucharisticus ' at 5 A.M. on May Day. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

EASTER CUSTOMS AT TAUNTON AND HASE- LEY. Every series of *N. fe Q.' contains accounts of Easter customs in various parts of the world, but among them I fail to trace any report of the annual proceedings at Taunton (Somerset) or Haseley (Warwick).

Prebendary Askwith stated, at the Easter vestry for the parish of St. Mary Magdalene at Taunton, that the vestry had been regu- larly held at eleven o'clock on the morning of Easter Tuesday ever since the time of Queen Elizabeth. The meeting is also by ancient prescriptive right held without any notice being given. Another peculiarity is that there are three churchwardens, all of whom are elected by the parishioners, the vicar having no power of appointment. This state of things is supposed to be almost unique in England, and Prebendary Askwith said he was informed by his legal advisers that if the slightest deviation were made in the method of procedure, such as public notice of the meeting being given, the ancient prescriptive right would be lost and the proceedings would have to be conducted in accordance with modern law.

The Rev. Edward Muckleston, rector of the parish of Haseley, Warwick, stated that after the Easter vestry meeting is held the churchwardens adjourn to the parish public- house. The parish warden there reads out the list of quarterly expenses, and the rector then invites all the parishioners to eggs and ham and tea. After that is over the churchwardens treat all the parishioners to whatever they like to drink, and then the rector does the same. The evening is spent in singing songs, &c. This custom has been carried out for sixty years. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

" COCKERTONIZED " : "GARAGE." The Daily News of 23 April has invented a word after the fashion of " boycotted." In the issue of that day it writes the word " Cockertonized " in relation to Mr. Cockerton's crusade against the London School Board's Pupil Teachers' Centres.

The Daily Mail of the same date, referring to " new storage accommodation for city men's automobiles," writes of such storage accom- modation as a " garage." Unde denvatur ? GREVILLE WALPOLE, M.A., LL D.

Kensington.

[For " Garage," see 9 th S. viii. 143, 230.]

FLINT - GLASS TRADE. The Birmingham Daily Post of 2 April contains an interesting

article on the present state of the flint-glass trade in the Midlands. From it I extract the following :

"The men work in turns or shifts of six hours each ; in these six-hour turns the Union has fixed the quantity of work to be done. For imtance, eighty is the limit number of strawstem wineglasses to be made in six hours by a * chair,' which con- sists of three men and a Doy. It might be pre- sumed that a quick man might be allowed to go on making articles, and, of course, receive extra payment, but this is not so. If he gets through his number before the expiration of the six hours the business of the glass house has no further con- cern for him. He has done his stint Incident- ally it may be mentioned that the earnings are good, even for skilled workmen. At one establishment in Birmingham for a week of forty hours a work- manthe chief of a * chair 'would draw about 31., the servitor 21., and the footblower [in another part of the article called the footmaker] 30*."

The use of "chair " in this sense is not re- corded in the ' H.E.D.,' and the use of " work- man " in the special sense of chief of the " chair " is interesting, as are also the terms "stint," "servitor," and "footblower" or "footmaker." BENJ. WALKER.

Gravelly Hill, Erdington.

A CURIOUS WAY OF LETTING LAND. The enclosed cutting is from the Yorkshire Post of 9 April :

" An ancient custom in connection with the let- ting of a piece of land at Bourne, known as ' The White Bread Meadow,' was observed on Monday last. The land is let by auction, and at each bid a boy is started to run to a given public-house, and the land is let to the person whose bid has not been challenged when the last boy returns. The land on Monday was let for 51. 7*. 6rf. The money is partly spent in a bread and cheese and onion supper at a public-house, and the remainder is spent in loaves of bread delivered to every house within a certain district of the town."

J. A. CROSS.

COLONIAL JOURNALISM. The following is from the Advertiser (Adelaide), 23 December, 1901 :

" Last night Leslie Berry, a State boy, 8 years of age, who was boarded out with Mr. John Fernace, of Lower McDonald, was bitten by a deaf adder close to the latter's residence. He was not at first aware that he had been bitten, and died in an hour and a half afterwards."

One knows what the writer meant, but why did he express himself in this way 1 EDWARD BENSLY.

The University, Adelaide, South Australia.

BISHOP WHITE KENNETT'S FATHER. The 'D.N.B.' states that the bishop was boru m the parish of St. Mary, Dover, 10 August, 1660, son of Basil Kennett, M.A., rector of Dimchurch and vicar of Postling, by his wife Mary, eldest daughter of Thomas White, a