ance on juries, adds, in a note: "It may perhaps be thought singular to suppose that this exemption from serving on juries is the foundation of the vulgar error, that a surgeon or butcher, from the barbarity of their business, may be challenged as jurors." But Sir H. Spelman says: "In our law, those that were exercised in slaughter of beasts were not received to be triers of the life of a man" (Posth. Works, p. 112; St. Trials, vol. ii. p. 1171). So learned a man as Spelman must surely have had some ground for this statement.-Notes and Queries, No. 82.

WINDOW-LIGHT CUSTOM.

In the London Corporation Inquiry, made in 1834, Mr. Woodthorpe, the town-clerk, mentioned the following ancient custom in the City, with respect to the taking away of a light or window. If a man had a window in his house looking into an open space in which there had never been any building in his memory, and that another erected a wall which obstructed the light from that window, the person so erecting it would be justified, if he could show that a building had at any time within the memory of man stood there. All that the party erecting had to do was, to get the Recorder to appear in the Court of King's Bench, and (on proof of the fact of the previous building) to plead "the custom of the city of London," and the right of the party erecting the building would be admitted; or, in other words, the action of the party opposing the obstruction would be barred.

MILK AND MACKEREL SOLD ON SUNDAYS.

The sale of these articles on Sundays is legalised by Parliament. By a statute of the 13th of Car. II., carrying further than had been done under any of our sovereigns since the days of the Heptarchy the prohibition of labour or business upon the Lord's day, exception is made "for the crying or selling of milk before nine of the clock in the morning, or after four of the clock in the afternoon." And by a law of 10 Will. III., mackerel are permitted to be sold on Sundays before or after divine service; a provision afterwards recognised by the 2d of Geo. III. also in favour of fish-carts travelling on Sundays.

GAMING-TABLES AT RACES.

Nearly all the Gaming-tables taken to races are either false in themselves, or are played upon with false balls. Many years ago a large case, after remaining unclaimed at the coach-office of the White Horse Inn, Fetter-lane, was opened to discover its contents, which were found to be the frames of six E O tables, all of which were unfair ones. They were rendered so

by a very simple construction. It merely consisted in the formation of the brass rods which divide the letters E and O. They all project a little beyond the surface of the circular frame round which the ball revolves; but by the two which immediately precede the barred E and the barred O being a little longer than the rest, the ball, when its rotatory action becomes weak, is imperceptibly arrested by it in its course, and thus falls into the barred letter, which wins.-Nimrod.

66
THE ROUND-ROBIN."

This is a circle, divided from the centre, like the famed Arthur's Round Table, whence it is thought to have originated. In each compartment of the "Robin" is a signature; so that the entire circle, when filled, exhibits a list, without priority being given to either name.

It is, however, stated that the Round-Robin, without which British sailors would be deprived of their right of petition, was first invented in Athens, on the occasion of the conspiracy of Aristogeiton and Harmodius against the tyranny of the Pisistratida. The Romans, in imitation of the Greeks, not to indicate their preference to any either among their guests or friends, wrote their names in a circle, in such a manner that it was impossible to say which was first, second, or last, in their estimation. They generally wrote the names of their slaves in the compass of a round-robin, that it might not appear to which they meant to give liberty, or who were their favourites. At the Saturnalia it was customary for the servants and slaves to ridicule the vicos and imperfections of their masters through the medium of the round-robin.

66 THE BROAD-ARROW,"

used as a Government mark, is thought to have had a Celtic origin; and the so-called arrow may be the Aor a, the broad a of the Druids. This letter was typical of superiority either in rank and authority, intellect or holiness; and is believed to have stood also for king or prince.-Notes and Queries, No. 108.

THE IMPERIAL STANDARD MEASURE.

An act of Parliament passed 18 and 19 Vict. cap. 72, repeals so much of the act of the 5th of George IV. cap. 7, as relates to the restoration of the Imperial Standard yard and the Standard Pound Troy respectively, in cases of loss, destruction, defacement, or other injury. The restored standard yard is established, being the straight line or distance between the centres of the two gold plugs or pins in the bronze bar deposited in the office of the Exchequer. The weight of platinum marked "P. S., 1844, 1 lb.," deposited in the office of the Exchequer, is to be the legal and genuine standard measure of weight and the imperial standard pound avoirdupois.

Church and State.-Parliament.

HIGH CHURCH AND LOW CHURCH.

THE distinction of High Church and Low Church always existed in the Reformed English Church; but the names were not coined till the close of the seventeenth century, and were not stamped in full relief as party names until the disputes in Convocation in 1702; and they were ever afterwards used to distinguish the clergy. Until the time of William of Orange, the Church of England as a body-her sovereigns and bishops, her clergy and laity-comes under the denomination of High Church; while those who sympathised with the Dissenters were few and weak: but William, as head of the church, opened the floodgates of Puritanism, and admitted into the church what had previously been more or less external to it, which element, thus made part and parcel of the Anglican Church, was denominated Low Church. William supplanted the bishops and clergy who refused to take the oaths of allegiance to him as king de jure, and by putting Puritans in their place, made the latter the dominant party. Sir Walter Scott, in his Life of Dryden, observes that

"Towards the end of Charles II.'s reign, the High-Churchmen and the Catholics regarded themselves as on the same side in political questions, and not greatly divided in their temporal interests. Both were sufferers in the plot, both were enemies of the sectaries, both were adherents of the Stuarts."

In James II.'s reign, and at the time these party names originated, the Roman Catholics were in league with the Puritans or Low-Church party against the High Churchmen, which increased the acrimony of both parties. In those days religion was politics, and politics religion with most of the belligerents. But Swift chose one party for its politics, and the other for its religion.

.....

"Swift carried into the ranks of the Whigs the opinions and scruples of a High-Church clergyman. Such a distinction between opinions in Church and State has not unfrequently existed; the High Churchmen being usually Tories, and the Low-Church divines uniformly Whigs." -Scott's Life, edit. 1824.

Swift, in his quaint Argument against abolishing Christianity, 1708, speaks of "those factious distinctions of High

N

and Low Church, of Whig and Tory, Presbyterian and Church of England." Scott says of the Tale of a Tub:

"The main purpose is to trace the gradual corruption of the Church of Rome, and to exalt the English Reformed Church at the expense both of the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian establishments. It was written with a view to the interests of the High-Church party."

We select and abridge the above from "Notes" by Jarltzberg, in Notes and Queries, No. 197, who winds up with these definitions:

"Mr. Thelwall says that he told a pious old lady, who asked him the difference between High Church and Low Church, The High Church place the Church above Christ, the Low Church place Christ above the Church.' About a hundred years ago, that very same question was asked of the famous South: Why,' said he, 'the High Church are those who think highly of the Church, and lowly of themselves; the Low Church are those who think highly of themselves, and lowly of the Church.""-The Rev. H. Newland's Lectures on Tractarianism, 1852, p. 68.

The most celebrated High Churchmen who lived in the last century were Dr. South, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Rev. Wm. Jones of Nayland, Bishop Horne, Bishop Wilson, and Bishop Horsley.

THE RUBRIC.

By this word is implied a rule or direction. It is derived from the Latin word rubrica, which signifies red earth, red ochre, &c.; and it is employed to designate the rules which are laid down in the Book of Common Prayer to direct the minister and people in the performance of divine worship. These rules were formerly printed in red letters, to distinguish them from the prayers and other parts of the liturgy, which were printed in black letters.

LAW OF PEWS IN CHURCHES.

By the general law, and of common right (says Sir John Nicholl), all the Pews in a parish church are the property of the parish: they are for the use, in common, of the parishioners, who are all entitled to be seated, orderly and conveniently, so as best to provide for the accommodation of all. The distribution of seats rests with the churchwardens, as the officers, and is subject to the control of the ordinary. Neither the minister, nor the vestry, has any right to interfere with the churchwardens in seating and arranging the parishioners. The duty of the church wardens is to look to the general accommodation of the parish. Although the parishioners can claim to be seated according to their rank and station, yet the churchwardens should not, in providing for this, overlook the claims of all the parishioners to be seated, if sittings can be afforded them.

WHAT IS PANTHEISM?

The absurd and impious old notion that affects to believe that the universe itself constitutes God; that that awful word represents only the aggregate of every thing that exists-that whatever is, is God, a substance for ever the same, and every thing in existence only a necessary succession of its modes of being. There are certain so-called philosophers of the present day who seriously avow these notions; and, in doing so, unavoidably remind us of some who, professing themselves to be wise, became fools.-Samuel Warren, F.R.S.*

Spinosa was an early disciple of Pantheism: hence his followers were called Pantheists.

Spinozism was the form of Pantheism taught by Benedict Spinoza, a Jew of Amsterdam, who maintained that God is not only the maker, but also the original matter of the universe, so that creation was only a development of himself by the Deity.-Murdoch.

In Europe, Christianity is giving way beneath an invading Pantheism. In Germany, in France, even among educated men in England, whose education has not been carried on in the great schools of the Church, or on the avowed principles of the Church, Pantheism is an avowed creed. Among the dregs of our population, though under no classical name, the same spirit is working: Socialism is a vulgar Pantheism.-Quarterly Review, 1840.

JUDAISM AND PAGANISM.

"There is one primary and capital mark of distinction," says Bishop Warburton, "differing Judaism (i. e. the religious doctrines and rites of the Jews) from all other forms of religion it professes to come from the First Cause of all things, and it condemns every other religion for an imposture. There is nothing more surprising in all pagan antiquity than that, amidst their endless (alleged) revelations, not one of them ever made such pretensions as these; yet there is nothing which modern writers are more apt to pass over without reflection. The ancient fathers, however, more nearly acquainted with the state of paganism, regarded it with the attention due to so extraordinary a circumstance."-Divine Legation of Moses, book iv. s. 1.

LATITUDINARIANISM.

"Latitudinarianism," says good Bishop Ker, "is the common sewer of all heresies imaginable." The Bishop of London, in his charge at St. Paul's, Nov. 2, 1850, said: "I would desire you (the clergy) to consider whether some of those persons who are disgusted with the departure, now too common, from the soberness and simplicity of our devotional offices, and with exaggerated notions which are insisted on as to the autho

*The Intellectual and Moral Development of the Present Age, 1853.