One meets with curious things in the old church registers of England. The subjoined, in the Record Office of Winchester Cathedral, dated 1182, is certainly unique. It is a bill for work done:—
| s. | d. | |
| To soldering and repairing St. Joseph, | 0 | 8 |
| To cleaning and ornamenting the Holy Ghost, | 0 | 6 |
| To repairing the Virgin Mary and cleaning the child, | 4 | 8 |
| To screwing a nose on the Devil, and putting in the hair on his head, and placing a new joint in his tail, | 5 | 6 |
Antiquity of Riddles.
Riddles are of the highest antiquity. The oldest one on record is in the book of Judges, xiv. 14-18. We are told by Plutarch that the girls of his time worked at netting or sewing, and the most ingenious made riddles. The following riddle is attributed to Cleobolus, one of the seven wise men of Greece, who lived about 570 years before the birth of Christ:—
"There is a father with twice six sons; these sons have thirty daughters apiece, parti-colored, having one cheek white and the other black, who never see each other's faces, nor live more than twenty-four hours."
Cashing Lottery Prizes.
In the State Lottery of 1739, tickets, chances and shares were "bought and sold by Richard Shergold, printer, at his office at the Union Coffee-house over and against the Royal Exchange, Cornhill." He advertised that he kept numerical books during the drawing, and a book wherein buyers might register their numbers at sixpence each; that fifteen per cent. was to be deducted out of the prizes, which were to be paid at the bank in fifty days after the drawing. The heavy percentage demanded occasioned the following epigram:—
"This lottery can never thrive,"
Was broker heard to say,
"For who but fools will ever give
Fifteen per cent. to play?"
A sage, with his accustomed grin,
Replied, "I'll stake my doom,
That if but half the fools come in
The wise will find no room!"