DOG-WHIPPERS.
(Vol. ix., p. 349.)
The following Notes may contain information for your correspondent C. F. W. on the subject of dog-whippers.
Richard Dovey, of Farmcote in Shropshire, in the year 1659, charged certain cottages with the payment of eight shillings to some poor man of the parish of Claverley, who should undertake to awaken sleepers, and whip dogs from the church during divine service. Ten shillings and sixpence per annum is now paid for the above service.
John Rudge by his will, dated in 1725, gave five shillings a quarter to a poor man to go about the parish church of Trysull, in Staffordshire, during sermon, to keep people awake, and keep dogs out of the church. This sum is still paid for that purpose.
At Chislet, in Kent, is a piece of land called "Dog-whipper's Marsh," about two acres, out of
which the tenants pay ten shillings a year to a person for keeping order in the church during divine service.
There is an acre of land in the parish of Peterchurch, Herefordshire, appropriated to the use of a person for keeping dogs out of the church.
In the parish of Christchurch, Spitalfields, there is a charity fund called "cat and dog money," the interest on which is now divided annually amongst six poor widows of weavers of the names of Fabry or Ovington. There is a tradition in the parish that this money was originally left for the support of cats and dogs, but it is more probable that it was originally intended, as in the cases above mentioned, to "whip dogs and cats" out of the church during divine service, and that on the unforeseen increase in the fund after a lapse of years, it became appropriated in the present way. This money was the subject of a chancery suit in the last century, and the decree therein directed the present division.
Many of your readers will call to mind the yelp of some poor cur who had strolled through the open door of a country church on some sultry day, and been ejected by the sexton. I myself have often listened to the pit-a-pat in the quiet aisle, and I once remember a disturbance in church caused by the quarrel of two dogs. Such scenes, and the fact that dogs were considered unclean animals, most likely gave rise to the occupation of dog-whipper as a function of the sexton. It will also be remembered that some dogs cannot forbear a howl at the sound of certain musical instruments; and besides the simple inconvenience to the congregation, this howl may have been considered a manifestation of antipathy to holy influences, as the devil was supposed to fear holy water.
Landseer's well-known picture of "The Free Church" proves to us that amongst the Highland shepherds the office does not now at least exist: and amongst other instances of the regular attendance at church of these "unclean animals," I know one in Wales where a favourite dog always accompanied his master to church, and stood up in the corner of the pew, keeping watch over the congregation with the strictest decorum.
A Notary.
That persons bearing an office described by such a name were attached to great houses in the sixteenth century, is clear from the well-known passage in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV. Sc. 4., where Launce says,—
"I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew it was Crab; and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs: 'Friend,' quoth I, 'you mean to whip the dog?' 'Ay, marry do I,' quoth he," &c.
W. B. R.
Derby.