resident in Piccadilly, disturbed with the riots and uproar of the place, procured its abolition. STOURBRIDGE FAIR. Fuller relates, Stourbridge Fair is so called from Stour, a little rivulet (on both sides whereof it is kept) on the east of Cambridge, whereof this original is reported. A clothier of Kendal, a town characterised to be lanificii gloriâ et industriá præcellens, casually wetting his cloth in water in his passage to London, exposed it there to sale on cheap terms, as the worse for wetting; and yet, it seems, saved by the bargain. Next year he returned again, with some other of his townsmen, proffering drier and dearer cloth to be sold; so that within a few years hither came a confluence of buyers, sellers, and lookers-on, which are the three principles of a fair. In memoriâ thereof, Kendal men challenge some privilege in that place, annually choosing one of the town to be chief, before whom an antic sword was carried, with some mirthful solemnities, disused of late, since these sad times, which put men's minds into more serious employment. This was about 1417. ASTLEY'S PRIZE WHERRY. Formerly, Philip Astley, the celebrated proprietor of the theatre called after him, was accustomed to give fire-works on our late venerable monarch's birthday, from barges moored in the centre of the Thames, off Stangate, when the performances of the theatre were over. An accident, however, happening on one occasion, and many lives being lost, they were discontinued, and a Prize Wherry given away every anniversary, till a year or so after Mr. Astley's death, when the old custom was discontinued. DOGGETT'S COAT AND BADGE. The first of August has long been famed for the rowing match for "Doggett's Coat and Badge;" so called from Thomas Doggett, the actor, who died in 1721. He left a sum of money, vested in the Fishmongers' Company, for the annual purchase of a waterman's coat and silver badge, to be rowed for on the first of August by young watermen who had finished their apprenticeship, betwixt Old Swan Stairs, London Bridge, and the Old Swan at Chelsea. Such is the origin of this annual custom. RIDING THE BLACK LAD. A singular custom prevails at Ashton-under-Lyne, on Easter Monday. Every year, on that day, the rude figure of a man, Р made of an old suit of clothes stuffed with rags, hay, &c., is carried on a horse through all the streets. The people who attend it call at every public-house, for the purpose of begging liquor for its thirsty attendants, who are always numerous. During its progress, the figure is shot at from all parts. When the journey is finished, it is tied to the market cross, and the shooting is continued till it is set on fire, and falls to the ground. This custom, it is said, originated with one of the Ashetons, who possessed a considerable landed property in this part of Lancashire. He was Vice-Chancellor to Henry VI., who exercised great severity on his own lands, and established the gool or guld riding. He is said to have made his appearance on Easter Monday, clad in black armour, and on horseback, followed by a numerous train, for the purpose of claiming the penalties arising from the neglect of farmers clearing their corn of "the_carr gulds.”* The tenants looked upon this visit with horror, and tradition has still perpetuated the prayer that was offered for a deliverance from his power:— "Sweet Jesu, for thy mercy's sake, Save us from the axe of the Tower, It is alleged, that on one of his visits on Easter Monday, he was shot as he was riding down the principal street, and that the tenants took no trouble to find out the murderer, but entered into a subscription, the interest of which was to make an effigy to his memory. At the present day, however, the origin is never thought of, and the money is derived from publicans, whose interests it is to keep up the custom. ་ RIDING STANG. This is a custom peculiar to the north of England; its origin, however, is uncertain. The Stang is a Cowl-staff; the Cowl is a water vessel, borne by two persons on the Cowl-staff, which is a stout pole whereon the vessel hangs. "Where's the Cowl-staff?” cries Ford's wife, when she purposes to get Falstaff into a large buck-basket, with two handles; the Cowl-staff, or Stang, is produced, and being passed through the handles, the fat knight is borne off by two of Ford's men. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1791, says, that "in Westmoreland and Cumberland, on the first of January, multitudes assemble early in the morning with baskets and Stangs, and whoever does not join them, whether inhabitant or stranger, is immediately mounted across the Stang, and carried, shoulder height, to the next public-house, where sixpence liberates the prisoner." * Corn Marygold. Riding the Stang is adopted in Yorkshire among the lower orders, on the discovery of any frailty on the side of either man or wife. A stang is then procured, on which "a good-natured friend" mounts, and is borne through the streets in the dusk of the evening, on the shoulders of two men, preceded by a man carrying a lantern. At every fifty yards or so, they make a halt, when the exalted personage roars out somewhat similar to the following: "Good neighbours attend, while I you harangue, "Tis neither for your sake, nor my sake, That I ride the Stang. But it is for the wife of Oliver Gray That I ride the Stang." This oration being concluded, the mob hurrahs, and after repeating it in different places, proceed to the residence of the frail one, where they conclude with hootings and jeerings, and then disperse. ROAST PIG! Elia maintains, that of all the delicacies in the whole eatable world, Roast Pig is the most delicious and delicate. "I speak," he says, "not of your grown porkers, things between pig and pork, those hobydehoys, but a young and tender suckling under a moon old, guiltless as yet of the stye, with his voice as not yet broken, but something between a childish treble and a grumble, the mild forerunner, or præludium of a grunt." Elia quotes from a Chinese MS., that roast pig, like a great many other important discoveries, was purely accidental, as follows, viz.,-" The swineherd, Hoti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who, being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian make-shift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East, from the remotest period that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labour of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odour assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from? not from the burnt cottage i he had smelt that smell before: indeed, this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them, he applied them, in his booby fashion, to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for before him no man had known it), he tasted-crackling! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth, at length, broke into his slow understanding, that it was the pig that smelled so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and, surrendering himself up to the newborn pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered, amid the smoky rafters, armed with a retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as hailstones, which Bo-bo heeded not, any more than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure which he experienced in his lower regions, had rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig. Bo-bo, in the afternoon, regardless of his father's wrath, and with his scent wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti; still shouting out, Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father: only taste; O Lord!' with suchlike barbarous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke. The narrative relates, that Ho-ti trembled every joint while he grasped the abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorched his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavour, which, make what sour mouths he would for a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here is a little tedious), both father and son fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had dispatched all that had remained of the litter. Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the neighbours would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable wretches, who could think upon improving the good meat which God had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It was observed, Ho-ti's cottage was burnt down now, more frequently than ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break out in broad day, others 6 in the night-time. As often as the sow farrowed, so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a blaze; and Ho-ti himself, which was the more remarkable, instead of chastising his son, seemed to grow more indulgent to him than ever. At length they were watched, the terrible mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to take their trial at Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize-town. "Evidence was given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and verdict about to be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury begged that some of the burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might be handed into the jury box. He handled it, and they all handled it, and burning their fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature prompting to each of them the said remedy, against the face of all the facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given to the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all present; without leaving the box, or any manner of consultation whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty. "The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity of the decision; and when the court was dismissed, went privily, and bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few days his lordship's town-house was observed to be on fire. The thing took wing, and now there was to be seen fires in every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district. The insurance offices, one and all, shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says the manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery, that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked (burnt, as they called it), without the necessity of consuming a whole house to dress it. They commenced with a gridiron; then came the string and the spit. By such slow degrees, continues the manuscript, do the most useful, and seemingly the most obvious arts, make their way among mankind!" COUNSELLORS' FEES. Counsellors' fees were not known till the reign of our Edward III. The counsellors up to that period were considered as holding honorary situations. It is true, they had a certain stipend from the crown, but it was no cure, no pay," as regarded their client. 66 Up to the reign alluded to, the king generally presided (especially Edward I., who was called our English Justinian) in the King's Bench; hence the honour of pleading before the sovereign was considered in a measure equivalent to a golden fee. It was at the latter end of this monarch's reign, that giving fees * See origin of term Banco Regis. |