Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/250

Rh

All these entries, to the church historian, and no less to the general student, cannot be without peculiar interest. The smoke silver, which so frequently occurs, is either the money paid for certain privileges of cutting fuel, which, as we have seen, was formerly the case in the Forest, or an assessment on the houses according to the number of hearths, but more probably the former. The general reader will scarcely care for more, but I trust elsewhere to give further extracts from these most interesting books.

Turning back to the Registers, let me add from the Ibbesley Parish Register Book, as so few people have seen a specimen, an entry of an affidavit of burial in a woollen shroud, in compliance with the Act passed in 1679, for the encouragement of the woollen manufacture in England. It thus runs, placed opposite to the entry of the person's burial, and written in the same handwriting:—"Jan. 9th, 16 78/79, I recd a certificate from Mr. Roger Clavell, Justice of ye peace at Brokenhurst, that Thomas King and Anthony King, sons of Anthony King, deceased, did make oath before him, the sayd Roger Clavell, that the aforesayd Antony King was buried according to the late Act of Parliament." 232