At this period, bear-baiting was a popular amusement. Sunday was a great day for the pastime. It was on the last Sunday of April, 1520, that part of the chancel of St. Mary’s Church, Beverley, fell, killing a number of people. According to a popular tradition, a bear was being baited, and mass was being sung at the same time, but at the latter only fifty-five attended and all were killed, whereas at the former about a thousand were present. Hence the origin of the Yorkshire saying, “It is better to be at the baiting of a bear than the singing of a mass.” An expert horseman was also employed in connection with the household. He had not to be afraid of a fence, and it was his duty to attend my Lord when hunting.

Bread and Baking in Bygone Days.

The earliest form of bread consisted of grain soaked in water, then pressed, and afterwards dried by means of the sun or fire. Another early kind of bread took the form of porridge or pudding, consisting of flour mixed with water and boiled. Next came the method of kneading dough, and the result was tough and unleavened bread.

In Saxon times women made bread, and the modern title “lady” is softened from the Saxon hlaf-dige, meaning the distributor of bread. We learn from contemporary pictures that Anglo-Saxon bread consisted of round cakes, not unlike the Roman loaves of which we get representations in the pictures at Pompeii, and not unlike our Good-Friday cross-buns, which we are told come down to us from our Saxon forefathers.

In connection with monasteries were bake-houses, and the work here would be done by the conversi or lay brothers. The holy bread in the mass was baked in the convents and churches by the priests or monks with much ceremony. Ovens were sometimes connected with old churches.

Some of the monks in Saxon times do not appear to have fared well. We find it recorded that in the eighth century those at the Abbey of St. Edmund had to partake of barley bread because the income of the house was not sufficent to provide wheaten-bread twice or thrice daily.

Towards the close of the thirteenth century the chief bakers who supplied London with bread lived at Stratford-le-Bow, Essex, doubtless on account of being near Epping Forest, where they could obtain cheap firewood. At a later period some were located at Bromley-by-Bow. The bread was brought to London in carts, and exposed for sale in Bread Street. The bakers attended daily excepting on Sundays and great festivals. It was no uncommon circumstance to seize the bread on its way to town for being of light weight, or made of unsound materials. It was not until the year 1302 that London bakers were permitted to sell bread in shops.

A Royal Charter was granted in 1307 to the London Bakers’ Company. The charter, we are told, “empowered the company to correct offences concerning the trade, to make laws and ordinances, to levy fines and penalties for non-observance thereof; and within the city and suburbs, and twelve miles round, to view, search, prove, and weigh all bread sold; and in case of finding it unwholesome, or not of due assize, to distribute it to the poor of the parish where it was found, and to impose fines, and levy the same by distress and sale of offenders’ goods.” When reform became the order of the day the power of the Bakers’ Company passed away.

There are various old-time statutes of the assize of bread in London. The earliest dates back to the days of Henry II. Another belongs to the reign of Henry III.; it regulated the price of bread according to the value of corn. A baker breaking the law was fined, and if his offence was serious he was placed in the pillory. These statutes were extended under Edward VI., Charles II., and Queen Anne.

In 1266 bakers were commanded not to impress their bread with the sign of the cross, Agnus Dei, or the name of Jesus Christ.

The lot of the baker in bygone times was a very hard one. He could not sell where he liked, and the price of his bread was regulated by those in authority. Pike, in his “History of Crime in England,” says, “Turn where he might, the traveller in London in 1348 could hardly fail to light upon some group, which would tell him the character of the people he had to see. Here, perhaps, a baker with a loaf hung round his neck, was being jeered, and pelted in the pillory, because he had given short weight, or because, when men had asked him for bread, he had given them not a stone, but a lump of iron enclosed by a crust.”

At this period women were largely employed in the bakehouse. Women in mediæval times performed much of the rougher kind of labour. Mr. Pike tells a tragic tale to illustrate the heartless character of bakehouse women in bygone times:—“At Middleton, in Derbyshire, there lived a man whose wife bore a name well known to readers of mediæval romances, Isolda or Isoult. As he lay one night asleep in his bed, this female Othello took him by the neck and strangled him. As soon as he was dead, she carried the body to an oven which adjourned their chamber, and piled up a fire to destroy the traces of her guilt. But, though she had so far shown the energy and power of a man, her courage seems to have failed her at the last moment. She took to flight, and her crime was discovered.”

In the olden time, it was the practice of females to deliver bread from house to house in London. The bakers gave them thirteen articles for twelve, and the odd article appears to have been the legitimate profit which they were entitled to receive in return for their work. From this old custom we obtain the baker’s dozen of thirteen. Bakers were not permitted to give credit to women retailers if they were known to be in debt to others. It was also against the law to receive back unsold bread if cold. The latter regulation would make the saleswomen energetic in their labours.

In many places the ducking-stool was employed to punish offending bakers. The old records of Beverley contain references to this subject. “During the Middle Ages,” it is stated on good authority, “scarcely any spectacle was so pleasing to the people of Central Europe as that of the public punishment of the cheating baker. The penalties inflicted on swindling bakers included confiscation of property, deprivation of civil and other rights, banishment from the town for certain periods, bodily punishment, the pillory, and the gibbet. If a baker was found guilty of an offence against the law, he was arrested and kept in safe custody till the gibbet was ready for him. It was erected as nearly as possible in the middle of the town, the beam projecting over a stagnant pool; at the end of the beam was a pulley, over which ran a rope fastened to a basket large enough to hold a man. The baker was forced into the basket, which was drawn up to the beam; there he hung over the muddy pool, the butt of the jeers and missiles of a jubilant crowd. The only way to escape was to jump into the dirty water and run through the crowd to his home, and if he did not take the jump willingly, he was sometimes helped out of the basket by means of a pole. In some towns a large cage was used instead of a basket, and, instead of taking a jump, the culprit was lowered into the filthy pool and drawn up again several times until the town authorities thought he had had enough.” In some parts of Turkey it was, until recently, the rule to punish a baker who did not give full weight by nailing his ear to the doorpost. If he were out when the officers of justice arrived his son or his servant was punished in his stead, as the authorities were very much averse from making their men do the journey twice.

The Court Leet records of many of our old English towns include items of interest bearing on this subject. At Manchester, at the Court Leet held October 1, 1561, it was resolved that no person or persons be permitted to make for sale any kind of bread in which butter is mixed, under a fine of 10s. Later, the use of suet was forbidden. In 1595, we are told that “the Court Leet Jury of Manchester ordered that no person was to be allowed to use butter or suet in cakes or bread; fine, 20s. No baker or other person to be allowed to bake said cakes, &c.; fine, 20s. No person to be allowed to sell the same; fine, 20s.” Next year, on September 30, we gather from the records that “eight officers were appointed to see that no flesh meat was eaten on Fridays and Saturdays, and twelve for the overseeing of them that put butter, cream, or suet in their cakes.” We learn from the history of Worcester that an order was made in 1641 that the bakers were not to make spice bread or short cakes, “inasmuch as it enhaunced the price of butter.”

A rather curious regulation in bygone times was the one which enforced the baker of white bread not to make brown, and the baker of brown bread not to make white.

Very heavy fines used to be inflicted on persons selling short weight of bread. “A baker was convicted yesterday,” says the Times of July 8th, 1795, “at the Public Office, Whitechapel, of making bread to the amount of 307 ounces deficient in weight, and fined a penalty of £64 7s.” In the same journal, three days later, we read, “A baker was yesterday convicted in the penalty of £106 5s. on 420 ounces of bread, deficient in weight.” The market records, week after week, in 1795, as a rule, record an increased price of grain, and by the middle of the year the matter had become serious. The members of the Privy Council gave the subject careful consideration, and strongly recommended that families should refrain from having puddings, pies, and other articles made of flour. With the following paragraph from the Times of July 22nd, 1795, we close our notes on bread in bygone days:—“His Majesty has given orders for the bread used in his household to be made of meal and rye mixed. No other sort is to be permitted to be baked, and the Royal Family eat bread of the same quality as their servants do.”

Arise, Mistress, Arise!

In the olden time in many places in the provinces it was the practice on Christmas-day morning to permit the servants and apprentices to remain in bed, and for the mistress to get up and attend to the household duties. The bellman at Bewdley used to go round the town, and after ringing his bell and saying, “Good-morning, masters, mistresses, and all, I wish you a merry Christmas,” he sang the following:

“Arise, mistress, arise,
And make your tarts and pies,
And let your maids lie still;
For if they should rise and spoil your pies,
You’d take it very ill.
Whilst you are sleeping in your bed,
I the cold wintry nights must tread
Past twelve o’clock, &c.”

Bewdley was famous for its ringers and singers, and its town crier was a man of note. An old couplet says:

“For ringers, singers, and a crier
Bewdley excelled all Worcestershire.”

In Lancashire was heard the following, proclaimed in the towns and villages:

“Get up old wives,
And bake your pies,
’Tis Christmas-day in the morning;
The bells shall ring,
The birds shall sing,
’Tis Christmas-day in the morning.”

At Morley, near Leeds, a man was formerly paid for blowing a horn at 5 a.m. to make known the time for commencing, and at 8 p.m. the hour for giving up work. His blast was heard daily except on Sundays. On Christmas-day morning he blew his horn and sang:

“Dames arise and bake your pies,
And let your maids lie still;
For they have risen all the year,
Sore against their will.”

The Turnspit.

One of the most menial positions in an ancient feudal household was that of turnspit. A person too old or too young for more important duties usually performed the work. John Lydgate, the monk of Bury, who was born in 1375, and died in 1460, gives us a picture of the turnspit as follows:—

“His mouth wel wet, his sleeves right thredbare,
A turnbroche, a boy for hagge of ware,
With louring face noddynge and slumberyng.”

Says Aubrey that these servants “did lick the dripping for their pains.”

In the reign of Edward III., the manor of Finchingfield was held by Sir John Compes, by the service of turning the spit at His Majesty’s coronation. This certainly appears a humble position for a knight to fill in “the gallant days of chivalry.”

The spits or “broches” were often made of silver, and were usually carried to the table with the fish, fowl, or joint roasted upon them.

The humble turnspit was not overlooked by the guests in the days of old, when largess was bestowed. We gather from “Howard’s Household Book” that Lord Howard gave four old turnspits a penny each. When Mary Tudor dined at Havering, she rewarded the turnbroches with sixteen-pence.

Dogs as well as men performed the task of turning the spit from an early period, and old-time literature includes many references to the subject. Doctor Caius, the founder of the college at Cambridge bearing his name, is the earliest English writer on the dog. “There is,” wrote Caius, “comprehended under the curs of the coarsest kind, a certain dog in kitchen service excellent. For when any meat is to be roasted they go into a wheel, where they, turning about with the weight of their bodies, so diligently look to their business, that no drudge nor scullion can do the feat more cunningly, whom the popular sort hereupon term turnspits.”

We have seen several pictures of dogs turning the spit, and an interesting example appears in a work entitled “Remarks on a Tour in North and South Wales,” published in 1800. The dog is engaged in his by no means pleasant work. “Newcastle, near Carmarthen,” says the author, “is a pleasant village. At a decent inn here a dog is employed as turnspit. Great care is taken that this animal does not observe the cook approach the larder; if he does, he immediately hides himself for the remainder of the day, and the guest must be contented with more humble fare than intended.”

Mr. Jesse, a popular writer on rural subjects, was a keen observer of old-time customs and institutions, and the best account of the turnspit that has come under our notice is from his pen. “How well do I remember, in the days of my youth,” says Mr. Jesse, “watching the operations of a turnspit at the house of a worthy old Welsh clergyman in Worcestershire, who taught me to read. He was a good man, wore a bushy wig, black worsted stockings, and large plaited buckles in his shoes. As he had several boarders as well as day scholars, his two turnspits had plenty to do. They were long-bodied, crook-legged, and ugly dogs, with a suspicious, unhappy look about them, as if they were weary of the task they had to do, and expected every moment to be seized upon to do it. Cooks in those days, as they are said to be at present, were very cross, and if the poor animal, wearied with having a larger joint than usual to turn, stopped for a moment, the voice of the cook might be heard rating him in no very gentle terms. When we consider that a large, solid piece of beef would take at least three hours before it was properly roasted, we may form some idea of the task a dog had to perform in turning a wheel during that time. A pointer has pleasure in finding game, the terrior worries rats with eagerness and delight, and the bull-dog even attacks bulls with the greatest energy, while the poor turnspit performs his task with compulsion, like a culprit on a treadmill, subject to scolding or beating if he stops a moment to rest his weary limbs, and is then kicked about the kitchen when the task is over.”

The mode of teaching the dog its duties is described in a book of anecdotes published at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1809. It was more summary than humane. The dog was put in the wheel, and a burning coal with him; he could not stop without burning his legs, and so was kept upon the full gallop. These dogs were by no means fond of their profession. It was indeed hard work to run in a wheel for two or three hours, turning a piece of meat twice their own weight.

In the same work two more anecdotes bearing on this theme also find a place, and are worth reproducing. “Some years ago,” we are told, “a party of young men, at Bath, hired the chairmen on a Saturday night to steal all the turnspits in the town, and lock them up till the following evening. Accordingly, on Sunday, when everybody has roast meat for dinner, all the cooks were to be seen in the streets, ‘Pray have you seen our Chloe?’ asks one. ‘Why,’ replies the other, ‘I was coming to ask if you had seen our Pompey.’ Up came a third, while they were talking, to inquire for her Toby. And there was no roast meat in Bath that day. It is told of these dogs in this city, that one Sunday, when they had as usual followed their mistresses to church, the lesson for the day happened to be that chapter in Ezekiel, wherein the self-moving chariots are described. When first the word wheel was pronounced, all the curs pricked up their ears in alarm; at the second wheel they set up a doleful howl. When the dreadful word was uttered a third time, every one of them scampered out of church, as fast as he could, with his tail between his legs.”

Allusions to this subject may be found in some of the poets of the olden time, more especially in those of a political character. Pitt, in his Art of Preaching, has the following on a man who speaks much, but to little purpose:—

“His arguments in silly circles run,
Still round and round, and end where they begun.
So the poor turnspit, as the wheel runs round,
The more he gains, the more he loses ground.”

A Gossip about the Goose.

The goose figures largely in the history, the legends, and the proverbial lore of our own and other lands. In ancient Egypt it was an object of adoration in the temple and an article of diet on the table. The Egyptians mainly took beef and goose flesh as their animal food, and it has been suggested that they expected to obtain physical power from the beef and mental vigour from the goose. To support this theory, it has been shown that other nations have eaten the flesh of wolves and drunk the blood of lions, hoping thereby to become fierce and courageous. Some other nations have refused to partake of the hare and the deer on account of the timidity of these animals, fearing lest by eating their flesh they should also partake of their characteristic fearfulness and timidity.

Pliny thought very highly of the goose, saying “that one might almost be tempted to think these creatures have an appreciation of wisdom, for it is said that one of them was a constant companion of the peripatetic philosopher Lacydes, and would never leave him, either in public or when at the bath, by night or by day.”

The cackling of the goose saved Rome. According to a very old story, the guards of the city were asleep, and the enemy taking advantage of this, were making their way through a weak part of the fortifications, expecting to take the city by surprise. The wakeful geese hearing them, at once commenced cackling, and their noise awoke the Romans, who soon made short work of their foes. This circumstance greatly increased the gratitude of the Roman citizens for the goose.

We gather from the quaint words of an old chronicler a probable solution of the familiar phrase, “To cook one’s goose.” “The kyng of Swedland”—so runs the ancient record—“coming to a towne of his enemyes with very little company, his enemyes, to slyghte his forces, did hang out a goose for him to shoote; but perceiving before nyghte that these fewe soldiers had invaded and sette their chief houlds on fire, they demanded of him what his intent was, to whom he replyed, ‘To cook your goose’.”

In the days when the bow and arrow were the chief weapons of warfare, it was customary for the sheriffs of the counties where geese were reared to gather sufficient quantities of feathers to wing the arrows of the English army. Some of the old ballads contain references to winging the arrow with goose feathers. A familiar instance is the following:

“‘Bend all your bows,’ said Robin Hood;
‘And with the gray goose wing,
Such sport now show as you would do
In the presence of the king’.”

To check the exportation of feathers, a heavy export duty was put upon them.

The goose frequently figures in English tenures. In a poem by Gascoigne, published in 1575, there is an allusion to rent-day gifts, which appear to have been general in the olden time:

“And when the tenants come to pay their quarter’s rent,
They bring some fowle at Midsummer, a dish of fish in Lent,
At Christmasse a capon, and at Michaelmasse a goose.”

A strange manorial custom was kept up at Hilton in the days of Charles II. An image of brass, known as Jack of Hilton, was kept there. “In the mouth,” we are told, “was a little hole just large enough to admit the head of a pin; water was poured in by a hole in the back, which was afterwards stopped up.” The figure was then set on the fire; and during the time it was blowing off steam, the lord of the manor of Essington was obliged to bring a goose to Hilton and drive it three times round the hall-fire. He next delivered the goose to the cook; and when dressed, he carried it to the table and received in return a dish of meat for his own mess.

In bygone times, Lincolnshire was a great place for breeding geese; and its extensive bogs, marshes, and swamps were well adopted for the purpose. The drainage and cultivation of the land have done away with the haunts suitable for the goose; but in a great measure Lincolnshire has lost its reputation for its geese. Frequently in the time when geese were largely bred, one farmer would have a thousand breeding-geese, and they would multiply some sevenfold every year, so that he would have under his care annually, some eight thousand geese. He had to be careful that they did not wander from the particular district where they had a right to allow them to feed, for they were regarded as trespassers, and the owner could not get stray geese back unless he paid a fine of twopence for each offender.

Within the last fifty years it was a common occurrence to see on sale in the market-place at Nottingham at the Goose Fair from fifteen to twenty thousand geese, which had been brought from the fens of Lincolnshire. A street on the Lincolnshire side of the town is called Goosegate.

The origin of the custom of eating a goose at Michaelmas is lost in the shadows of the dim historic past. According to one legend, Saint Martin was tormented with a goose, which he killed and ate. He died after eating it; and ever since, Christians have, as a matter of duty, on the saint’s day sacrificed the goose. We have seen from the preceding quotation from Gascoigne that the goose formed a popular Michaelmas dish from an early period.

It is a common saying, “The older the goose the harder to pluck,” when old men are unwilling to part with their money. The barbarous practice of plucking live geese for the sake of their quills gave rise to the saying. It was usual to pluck live geese about five times a year. Quills for pens were much in request before the introduction of steel pens. One London house, it is stated, sold annually six million quill pens. A professional pen-cutter could turn out about twelve hundred daily.

Considerable economy was exercised in the use of quill pens. Leo Allatius, after writing forty years with one pen, lost it, and it is said he mourned for it as for a friend. William Hutton wrote the history of his family with one pen, which he wore down to the stump. He put it aside, accompanied by the following lines:

THIS PEN.
“As a choice relic I’ll keep thee,
Who saved my ancestors and me.
For seven long weeks you daily wrought
Till into light our lives you brought,
And every falsehood you avoided
While by the hand of Hutton guided.”
June 3, 1779.

In conclusion, it may be stated that Philemon Holland, the celebrated translator, wrote one of his books with a single pen, and recorded in rhyme the feat as follows:

“With one sole pen I wrote this book,
Made of a gray goose quill;
A pen it was when I it took,
A pen I leave it still.”

Bells as Time-Tellers.

The ringing of the bell in bygone times was general as a signal to commence and to close the daily round of labour. In some of the more remote towns and villages of old England the custom lingers at the ingathering of the harvest. At Driffield, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, for example, the harvest bell is still rung at five o’clock in the morning to arouse the labourers from their slumbers, and at seven in the evening the welcome sound of the bell intimates the time for closing work for the day.

References to this subject may sometimes be found in parish accounts and other old church documents. In the parish chest of Barrow-on-Humber, Lincolnshire, is preserved a copy of the “Office and Duty of the Parish Clerk,” bearing date of 1713, stating:—

We learn from an old survey of the parish, still retained amongst the church papers, the reward given to the clerk for ringing the harvest bell. Says the document:—

Barrow-on-Humber became famous for its bells, beer, and singers. An old rhyme states:—

“Barrow for ringing,
And Barrow for singing,
And the Oak for good stout ale.”

The Oak is the sign of the village inn, and a place of more than local reputation for its strong, home-brewed ale.

We have traces of the custom of ringing the harvest bell in various parts of the Midlands. At Moreton and at Walgrave, in Northamptonshire, the harvest bell was rung at four o’clock in the morning. At Spratton, Wellingborough, and other places in the county, the custom is still remembered, but not kept up.

It was customary in many places, when the last load of grain was brought home, to deck it with the boughs of the oak and ash, and a merry peal of the church bells made known the news that the farmer had ended his harvest, the farm labourers riding on the top of the load to sing—

“Harvest home! harvest home!
The boughs they do shake, the bells they do ring,
So merrily we bring the harvest in, harvest in!
So merrily we bring the harvest in.”

In some of the more remote villages of the country, the gleaners’ bell is rung as a signal to commence gleaning. By this means, to use the words of Mr. Thomas North, our leading authority on bell lore, the old and feeble, as well as the young and active, may have a fair start. At Lyddington, Rutland, says Mr. North, the clerk claims a fee of a penny a week from women and big children, as a recompense for his trouble. The parish clerk at West Deeping, Lincolnshire, claimed twopence a head from the gleaners, but as they refused to pay, he declined to ring the bell.

Bearing on this theme may be included particulars of a bell formerly rung at Louth when the harvest on the “Gatherums” was ripe. “A piece of ground so called,” writes Mr. North, “was in former times cultivated for the benefit of the poor. When the ‘pescods’ were ripe, the church bell was rung, which gave warning to the poor that the time had arrived when they might gather them; hence (it is said) gather ’em or gatherum.” From the church accounts is drawn the following:

Similar entries occur in the books of the church.

An inscription on a bell at Coventry, dated 1675, states:—

“I ring at six to let men know
When to and fro’ their work to goe.”

At St. Ives a bell bears a pithy inscription as follows:—

“Arise, and go about your business.”

The bells of Bow are amongst the best known in England, and figure in the legendary lore as well as in the business life of London. Every reader is familiar with the story of Dick Whittington leaving the city in despair, resting on Highgate Hill, and hearing the famous bells, which seemed to say in their merry peals—

“Turn again, Whittington,
Thou worthy citizen,
Lord Mayor of London.”

In 1469, an order was given by the Court of the Common Council for Bow bell to be rung every night at nine o’clock. Nine was the recognised time for tradesmen to close their shops. The clerk, whose duty it was to ring the bell, was irregular in his habits, and the late performance of his duties disappointed the toiling apprentices, who thus addressed him:—

“Clerk of Bow bell,
With thy yellow locks,
For thy late ringing
Thy head shall have knocks.”

The clerk replied:—

“Children of Cheape,
Hold you all still,
For you shall hear Bow Bell
Ring at your will.”

The foregoing rhymes take us back to a period before clocks were in general use in this country. The parentage of the present clock cannot be traced with any degree of certainty. We learn that as early as 996, Gerbert, a distinguished Benedictine monk (subsequently Pope Sylvester II.), constructed for Magdeburg a clock, with a weight as a motive power. Clocks with weights were used in monasteries in Europe in the eleventh century. It is supposed that they had not dials to indicate the time, but at certain intervals struck a bell to make known the time for prayers.

From the fact that a clock-keeper was employed at St. Paul’s, London, in 1286, it is presumed that there must have been a clock, but we have not been able to discover any details respecting it. There was a clock at Westminster in 1290, and two years later £30 was paid for a large clock put up at Canterbury Cathedral. Thirty pounds represented a large sum of money in the year 1292. About 1326 an astronomical clock was erected at St. Albans. It was the work of Richard de Wallingford, a blacksmith’s son of the town, who rose to the position of Abbot there. In the earlier half of the fourteenth century are traces of numerous other clocks in England. According to Haydn’s “Dictionary of Dates,” in the year 1530 the first portable clock was made. This statement does not agree with a writer in “Chambers’s Encyclopædia” (edition 1890). “The date,” we are told in that work, “when portable clocks were first made, cannot be determined. They are mentioned in the beginning of the fourteenth century. The motive power must have been a mainspring instead of a weight. The Society of Antiquaries of England possess one, with the inscription in Bohemian that it was made at Prague, by Jacob Zech, in 1525. It has a spring for motive power, with fusee, and is one of the oldest portable clocks in a perfect state in England.”

It is asserted that no clock in this country went accurately before the one was erected at Hampton Court, in 1540. Shakespeare, in his Love’s Labour’s Lost, gives us an idea of the unsatisfactory manner clocks kept time in the days of old. He says:—

... “Like a German clock,
Still a-repairing; ever out of frame;
And never going aright.”

Coming down to later times, we may give a few particulars of the difficulty of ascertaining the time in the country in the earlier years of the last century.

Norrisson Scatcherd, the historian of Morley, near Leeds, gives in his history, published in 1830, an amusing sketch of a local worthy named John Jackson, better known as “Old Trash,” poet, schoolmaster, mechanic, stonecutter, land-measurer, etc., who was buried at Woodkirk on May 19th, 1764. “He constructed a clock, and in order to make it useful to the clothiers who attended Leeds market from Earls and Hanging Heaton, Dewsbury, Chickenley, etc., he kept a lamp suspended near the face of it, and burning through the winter nights, and he would have no shutters nor curtains to his window, so that the clothiers had only to stop and look through it to know the time. Now, in our age of luxury and refinement, the accomodation thus presented by ‘Old Trash’ may seem insignificant and foolish, but I can assure the reader that it was not. The clothiers in the early part of the eighteenth century were obliged to be upon the bridge at Leeds, where the market was held, by about six o’clock in the summer, and seven in the winter; and hither they were convened by a bell anciently pertaining to a Chantry Chapel, which once was annexed to Leeds Bridge. They did not all ride, but most went on foot. They did not carry watches, for few of them had ever possessed such a valuable. They did not dine on fish, flesh, and fowl, with wine, etc., as some do now. No! no! The careful housewife wrapped up a bit of oatcake and cheese in a little checked handkerchief, and charged her husband to mind and not get above a pint of ale at ‘The Rodney.’ Would Jackson’s clock then be of no use to men who had few such in their villages? Who seldom saw a watch, but took much of their intelligence from the note of the cuckoo.”

For an extended period, the curfew bell has been a most important time-teller. The sounds are no longer heard as the signal for putting out fires, as they were in the days of the Norman kings. It is generally asserted that William the Conqueror introduced the curfew custom into England, but it is highly probable that he only enforced a law which had long been in existence in the kingdom, and which prevailed in France, Italy, Spain, and other countries on the Continent. Houses at this period were usually built of wood, and fires were frequent and often fatal, and on the whole it was a wise policy to put out household fires at night. The fire as a rule was made in a hole in the middle of the floor, and the smoke escaped through the roof. In an account of the manners and customs of the English people, drawn up in 1678, the writer states that before the Reformation, “Ordinary men’s houses, as copyholders and the like, had no chimneys, but flues like louver holes; some of them were in being when I was a boy.” In the year 1103, Henry I. modified the curfew custom. In “Liber Albus,” we find a curious picture of London life under some of the Plantagenet kings, commencing with Edward I. It was against the city regulations for armed persons to wander about the city after the ringing of the curfew bell.

We may infer from a circumstance in the closing days of William I., that from a remote period there was a religious service at eight o’clock at night. It will be remembered that the king died from the injuries received by the plunging of his horse, caused by the animal treading on some hot ashes. Shortly before his death he was roused from the stupor which clouded his mind, by the ringing of the vesper bell of a neighbouring church. He asked if it were in England and if it were the curfew bell that he heard. On being told that he was in his “own Normandy,” and the bell was for evening prayer, he “charged them bid the monks pray for his soul, and remained for a while dull and heavy.”

At Tamworth, in 1390, a bye-law was passed, and “it provided that no man, woman, or servant should go out after the ringing of the curfew from one place to another unless they had a light in their hands, under pain of imprisonment.” For a long period it was the signal for closing public-houses.

The Age of Snuffing.

In this country old customs linger long, and although the age of snuffing has passed away, in some quarters the piquant pinch still finds favour. Our ancient municipal corporations have been reformed, but old usages are still maintained and revived. In 1896 we saw an account in the newspapers of an amusing episode which occurred during a meeting of the Pontefract Town Council. One of the aldermen, noticing that the councillors had “to go borrowing” snuff, suggested the re-introduction of the old Corporation snuff-box. The official box, in the shape of an antler, was unearthed from underneath the aldermanic bench amidst much amusement, and the Mayor promised ere another sitting the article in question should be duly cleaned and replenished with the stimulating powder. Sir Albert K. Rollit, the learned and genial member of Parliament for South Islington, when Mayor of his native town of Hull a few years ago, presented to his brother members of the Corporation a massive and valuable snuff-box. The gift was much appreciated. In a compilation recently published under the title of “The Corporation Plate and Insignia of Office, &c., of the Cities and Towns of England and Wales,” will be found particulars of snuff-boxes belonging to some of the older municipal bodies. In bygone times taking snuff was extremely popular, its palmy days in England being during the eighteenth century. Snuff was praised in poetry and prose. Peer and peasant, rich and poor, the lady in her drawing-room and the humble housewife alike enjoyed the pungent pinch. The snuff-box was to be seen everywhere.

The earliest allusion we have to snuffing occurs in the narrative of the second voyage of Columbus in 1494. It is there related by Roman Pane, the friar, who accompanied the expedition, that the aborigines of America reduced tobacco to a powder, and drew it through a cane half a cubit long; one end of this they placed in the nose and the other upon the powder. He also stated that it purged them very much.

Snuff and other forms of tobacco on their introduction had many bitter opponents. After the Great Plague the popularity of tobacco and snuff increased, for during the time of the terrible visitation both had been largely used as disinfectants. There is a curious entry in Thomas Hearne’s Diary, 1720-21, bearing on this theme. He writes as follows under date of January 21:—“I have been told that in the last great plague in London none that kept tobacconists’ shops had the plague. It is certain that smoaking was looked upon as a most excellent preservative. In so much that even children were obliged to smoak. And I remember that I heard formerly Tom Rogers, who was yeoman beadle, say that when he was that year when the plague raged a schoolboy at Eton, all the boys in the school were obliged to smoak in the school every morning, and that he was never whipped so much in his life as he was one morning for not smoaking.” Pepys says in his Diary on June 7, 1665:—“The hottest day that ever I felt in my life. This day, much against my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and ‘Lord have mercy upon us!’ writ there; which was a sad sight to me, being the first of the kind that to my remembrance I ever saw. It put me into ill-conception of myself and my smell, so that I was forced to buy some roll tobacco to smell and chew, which took apprehension.” Another impetus to the habit of snuff-taking was given in 1702. Our Fleet was under the command of Sir George Rooke, and it is recorded that at Port Saint Mary, near Cadiz, several thousand barrels of choice Spanish snuff were captured. At Vigo on the homeward voyage more native snuff was obtained, and found its way to England, instead of the Spanish market, as it was originally intended. The snuff was sold at the chief English ports for the benefit of the officers and men. In not a few instances waggon-loads were disposed of at fourpence per pound. It was named Vigo snuff, and the popularity of the ware, its cheapness, and novelty were the means of its coming into general use. In no part of the world did it become and remain more popular than in North Britain. A volume published in London in 1702, entitled “A Short Account of Scotland,” without the author’s name, but apparently by a military officer, contains some interesting information on the social life of the people. We gather from this work that the chief stimulant of the Scotch at this period was snuff. “They are fond of tobacco,” it is stated, “but more from the sneesh-box [snuff-box] than the pipe. And they made it so necessary that I have heard some of them say that, should their bread come in competition with it, they would rather fast than their sneesh should be taken away. Yet mostly it consists of the coarsest tobacco, dried by the fire, and pounded in a little engine after the form of a tap, which they carry in their pockets, and is both a mill to grind and a box to keep it in.” At social gatherings the snuff-mull was constantly passed round, and we are told that each guest left traces of its use on the table, on his knees, the folds of his dress, and on the floor. The preacher’s voice was impaired with excessive indulgence in snuff.

Long before the English visitor had written his book on Scotland, attempts had been made to prohibit snuff-taking in church. At the Kirk Session of St. Cuthbert’s, held on June 18, 1640, it was decided that every snuff-taker in church be amerced in “twenty shillings for everie falt.” Under date of April 11, 1641, it is stated in the Kirk Session records of Soulton as follows:—“Statute with consent of the ministers and elders, that every one that takes snuff in tyme of Divine Service shall pay 6s. 8d., and give one public confession of his fault.” At Dunfermline, the Kirk Session had this matter under consideration, and the bellman was directed “to tak notice of those who tak the sneising tobacco in tyme of Divine Service, and to inform concerning them.” A writer in a popular periodical, in a chapter on “The Divine Weed,” makes a mistake, we think, presuming people smoked in church in bygone days. “At one period in the history of tobacco,” says the contributor, “smoking was so common that it was actually practised in church.” Previous to the visit of James the First to the University of Cambridge, in 1615, the Vice-Chancellor issued a notice to the students, which enjoined that “Noe graduate, scholler, or student of this Universitie presume to take tobacco in Saint Marie’s Church, uppon payne of finall expellinge the Universitie.” The taking of tobacco doubtless means using it in the form of snuff and not smoking it in a pipe.

Later, and perhaps at the period under notice, a strong feeling prevailed against smoking in the public streets. In the records of the Methwold Manor, Norfolk, is an entry in the court books dated October 4, 1659, as follows:—“Wee agree that any person that is taken smookeing tobacco in the street, forfeit one shilling for every time so taken, and it shall be put to the uses aforesaid (that is to the use of the towne). We present Nicholas Barber for smoking in the street, and do amerce him one shilling.” At a parish meeting held at Winteringham, on January 6, 1685, it was resolved:—“None shall smoke tobacco in the streets upon paine of two shillings for every default.” Schoolmasters were forbidden to smoke. In the rules of Chigwell School, founded in 1629, only fourteen years after the visit of James to Cambridge, it is stated:—“The master must be a man of sound religion, neither Papist nor Puritan, of a grave behaviour, and sober and honest conversation, no tippler, or haunter of alehouses, and no puffer of tobacco.”

We may come to the conclusion from the facts we have furnished, that if persons were not permitted to smoke in the street, it is quite certain they would not be allowed to do so in the house of prayer.

Preachers of all sections of the religious world delighted in a pinch of snuff. Sneezing was heard in the highest and humblest churches, and it even made St. Peter’s at Rome echo. The practice so excited the ire of Pope Innocent the Twelfth that he made an effort in 1690 to stop it in his churches, and “solemnly excommunicated all who should dare to take snuff.” Tyerman, in his “Life of Wesley,” tells us the great trouble the famous preacher had with his early converts. “Many of them were absolutely enslaved to snuff; some drank drams, &c., to remedy such evils, the preachers were enjoined on no account to take snuff, or to drink drams themselves; and were to speak to any one they saw snuffing in sermon time, and to answer the pretence that drams cured the colic and helped digestion.” Mr. Wesley cautioned a preacher going to Ireland against snuff, unless by order of a physician, declaring that no people were in such blind bondage to the silly, nasty, dirty custom as were the Irish. It is stated so far did Irishmen carry their love of snuffing, that it was customary, when a wake was on, to put a plate full of snuff upon the dead man’s, or woman’s stomach, from which each guest was expected to take a pinch upon being introduced to the corpse.

In the earlier days of snuff-taking, people generally ground their own snuff by rubbing roll tobacco across a small grater, usually fixed inside the snuff-box. We find in old-time writings many allusions to making snuff from roll tobacco. In course of time snuff was flavoured with rich essences, and scented snuffs found favour with the ladies. The man of refinement prided himself on his taste for perfumed powder. We find it stated in Fairholt’s book on “Tobacco,” that in the reign of William III. the beaux carried canes with hollow heads, that they might the more conveniently inhale a few grains through the perforations, as they sauntered in the fashionable promenades. Women quickly followed the lead of men in snuffing, in spite of satire in the Spectator and other papers of the period. The list of famous snuff-takers of the olden time is a long one, and only a few can be noticed here. Queen Charlotte heads the roll. She was persistent in the practice, and her unfilial and rude sons called her “Old Snuff.” Captain Gronow, when a boy at Eton, saw the Queen in company with the King taking an airing on the Terrace at Windsor, and relates “that her royal nose was covered with snuff both within and without.” Mrs. Siddons, “the queen of tragedy,” largely indulged in the use of snuff, both on and off the stage, even while taking her more important characters. Mrs. Jordan, another “stage star,” a representative of the comic muse, obtained animation from frequent use of snuff. Mrs. Unwin, the friend of Cowper, was extremely fond of it, and so was the poet, yet he was not a smoker. On snuff he wrote as follows:—

“The pungent, nose-refreshing weed,
Which whether pulverised it gain
A speedy passage to the brain,
Or whether touched with fire it rise
In circling eddies to the skies,
Does thought more quicken and refine
Than all the breath of all the Nine.”

Pope, in “The Rape of the Lock,” refers to ladies with their snuff-boxes always handy, and the fair Belinda found hers particularly useful in the battle she waged:—

“See, fierce Belinda on the baron flies
With more than usual lightning in her eyes;
And this bred lord, with manly strength endued,
She with one finger and a thumb subdued.
Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew
A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw;
The gnomes direct, to every atom just,
The pungent grains of titillating dust.
Sudden with startling tears each eye o’erflows,
And the high dome re-echoes to his nose.”

Napoleon’s legacy to the famous Lady Holland was a snuff-box, and Moore celebrated the gift in a verse written while he was in Paris in 1821:—

“Gift of the Hero, on his dying day,
To her who pitying watch’d, for ever nigh;
Oh, could he see the proud, the happy ray,
This relic lights up in her generous eye,
Sighing, he’d feel how easy ’tis to pay
A friendship all his kingdoms could not buy.”

Amongst ladies we have to include the charming Clarinda, a friend of Robert Burns, on whom he wrote when obliged to leave her:—

“She, the fair sun of all her sex,
Has blest my glorious day,
And shall, a glimmering planet, fix
My worship to its ray.”