past times, with feelings of pleasure and delight.

Their garland was constructed of hoops transversed, decorated with flowers, ribbons, &c., affixed to the extremity of a staff, by which it was borne, similar to those at Northampton and Lynn, so fully described in the Every-Day Book. and the Table Book. A "gay" silk handkerchief, tastefully ornamented with "bows" of colored ribbon, pendant from "ashen

an

a

bough, formed a flag to be carried by the smartest of the group walking stately on before. The cleanly healthy appearance of parties of these laughter-loving children, awake and out with the sun, exhibiting their garlands at "each good neighbour's and pretty maid's door"-with their heartfelt gratitude for the trifling meeds bestowed on their well-merited endeavours, formed pleasing picture on which I cannot now look back without regret. The money collected in the course of the day was apportioned to various uses. In the afternoon the "elders" made "parties," and solaced themselves with "a dish of tea:" and, in re-telling tales of other times, "told many a time and oft." The garlandbearing over, the "smaller growth" mused themselves at various games, and were also refreshed. The revels invariably ending with the well-known "Thread my needle," or "Needle-tick," which was played "up and down and all round" the town, by the children in great numbers, the sports lasted until

"Night had her sable curtain spread." Such was the manner in which the first of May was "kept" at Baldock, at the period of my earliest recollections. I have no means of correctly ascertaining "how things are at present," but, to the best of my belief, the customs mentioned are now obsolete.

May 3rd, O. S.-It is a common saying in many parts of Bedfordshire, when flies first begin to be troublesome on meat, fish, &c., that "the flies have been to Elstow fair to buy their bellows." The time of their appearance is generally coeval with the annual fair held at Elstow on May 3rd, Old Style, now the 15th.

Bedfordshire, about the time of year

named in it.

Wheat-sowing Cake.-At Blunham, a small village near Tempsford, in Bedfordshire, it is customary after wheatsowing, for the farmers' wives to make and send as presents to their relations, friends, and acquaintance, cakes of dough, sweetened, and very agreeably flavored with carraways, &c., which they term "Siblett Cakes." This usage, now perhaps peculiar to Blunham, is of great antiquity; its origin is not correctly known. A friend suggests that it may probably be a relic of the times of the ancients, with whom it was common to make propitiatory offerings to the goddess Ceres, after the sowing of corn. Twenty years ago this "gift giving" was very liberally kept up. Mrs. D, an old resident at Blunham, known to the writer, assured him that she has received at least fifteen large cakes at one season, each kindly presented to her from some farm-house in the neighbourhood. While recording this interesting custom in the Year Book, the writer sincerely laments that the observance is now rapidly disappearing before "the march of intellect," to the great grief of every lover of those pastoral associations with which it was once perhaps connected.

Gooding Day-At Blunham, also, the custom of poor widows "going a gooding," on the festival of St. Thomas, December, 21st, is still maintained, though certainly with less spirit than of former years within remembrance (O, tempora!). The aged poor women annually receive a certain number of loaves of bread each, the benevolent contributions of the neighbouring gentry, farmers, &c.

A Christmas Dish.-At Potton, and the places adjacent, some "sixty years since," when festival feastings were spiritedly maintained by the unchecked zeal of our forefathers (worthy souls, peace to their manes!), it was usual to place on the table, at Christmas entertainments, the "Apple Florentine," a palatable confection, of which the whole of the guests invariably partook.

According to parental tradition, this "Florentine" consisted of an immensely large dish of pewter, or such like metal, filled with "good baking apples," sugar, and lemon, to the very brim; with a roll of rich paste as a covering-pie fashion. When baked, and before serving up, the "upper crust or "lid," was taken off by

OLD TRAVELLING.

A describer of England, early in the reign of William III., speaks of it as excelling all other nations in the conveniency of coaches, but especially that of stage coaches, which he praises for their commodiousness and ease, and particularly for their expedition. He says:"Here one may be transported without over-violent motion, and sheltered from the injuries of the air, to the most noted places in England, with so much speed, that some of these coaches will reach above fifty miles in a summer day.' " We may now go in a stage nearly double that distance before stopping to dine; and on a summer day, between sun-rise and sunset, a fast coach travels nearly three

times the distance.

LENT-CROCKING.

[To Mr. Hone.]

In some of the villages of Dorsetshire and Wiltshire, the boys, at Shrovetide, still keep up a custom called Lent-Crocking, which originated in the carnival of Roman Catholic times, and consists in going round in the evening to pelt the doors of the inhabitants with pieces of broken crockery.

In Dorsetshire, the boys sometimes go round in small parties; and the leader goes up and knocks at the door, leaving his followers behind him, armed with a good stock of potsherds-the collected relics of the washing-pans, jugs, dishes, and plates, that have become the victims of concussion in the unlucky hands of careless housewives for the past year. When the door is opened, the hero, who is perhaps a farmer's boy, with a pair of black eyes sparkling under the tattered brim of his brown milking-hat covered with cow's hair and dirt like the inside of a black-bird's nest, hangs down his head, and, with one corner of his mouth turned up into an irrepressible smile, pronounces, in the dialect of his county, the following lines: composed for the occasion, perhaps, by some mendicant friar whose name might have been suppressed with the monasteries by Henry VIII.

"I be come a shrovin,

Vor a little pankiak,

New State of England, 1691.

A bit o' bread o' your biakin.

Or a little truckle cheese o' your own miakin,

If you'll gi' me a little, I'll ax no moore, If you don't gi' me nothin, I'll rottle your door."

cheese: and at some houses he is told to be Sometimes he gets a piece of bread and gone, when he calls up his followers to send their missiles in a rattling broadside against the door.

In Wiltshire, the begging of pancake and bread and cheese is omitted; and the Lent-crockers pelt the doors as a matter

of course.

The broken pots and dishes originally signified that, as Lent was begun, those cooking vessels were of no use, and were supposed to be broken; and the cessation of flesh-eating is understood in the begging for pancakes, and bread and cheese. W. BARNES.

FINDING AND LOSING.

Melton, in his Astrologaster, says: "That if a man, walking in the fields, find any foure-leaved grasse, he shall in a small while after find some good thing." The same writer tells us, "That it is naught for a man or woman to lose their hose garter." As also, "That it is a sign of ill lucke to finde money." This is corroborated by Greene, in his Art of Conny-catching: he tells us, ""Tis ill lucke to keepe found money." Therefore it must be spent.

Homes, in his Dæmonologie, 1650, exclaims: "How frequent is it with people, especially of the more ignorant sort, which makes the things more suspected, to think and say (as Master Perkins relates,) if they find some pieces of iron, it is a prediction of good luck to the finders. If they find a piece of silver, it is a foretoken of ill luck to them."

The hon. Robert Boyle, in Reflections, 1665, says: "The common people of this country have a tradition that 'tis a lucky thing to find a horse-shoe."

HALVES.

It is a popular custom to cry out "halves!" on seeing a person pick up any thing which he has found; this exclamation entitles the exclaimer to one half of the value. The well-known trick of ring-dropping is founded on this usage.*

* Brand.