[29] Under the same will the children of Langbourn Ward Schools who help in the choir, and the children of the Sunday School, receive each a bun, and various sums of new money, ranging from 1d. to 1s., besides the poor of the parish, on whom it bestowed 1s. each and a loaf. The money used to be given away over the tomb of the donor, until the railway in Liverpool Street effaced the spot.—City Press, April 12, 1873.
Just outside the church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield, the rector places twenty-one sixpences on a gravestone, which the same number of poor widows pick up. The custom is nearly as old as the church, and originated in the will of a lady, who left a sum of money to pay for the sermon, and to yield these sixpences to be distributed over her grave. As however, her will is lost, and her tomb gone, the traditionary spot of her interment is chosen for the distribution, a strange part of the tradition being that any one being too stiff in the joints to pick up the money is not to receive it.—Ibid.
On Good Friday the Portuguese and South American vessels in the London Docks observe their annual custom of flogging Judas Iscariot. The following extract is taken from the Times (April 5th, 1874):—“At daybreak a block of wood, roughly carved to imitate the Betrayer, and clothed in an ordinary sailor’s suit, with a red worsted cap on its head, was hoisted by a rope round its neck into the fore-rigging; the crews of the various vessels then went to chapel, and on their return, about 11 a.m., the figure was lowered from the rigging, and cast into the dock, and ducked three times. It was then hoisted on board, and after being kicked round the deck was lashed to the capstan. The crew, who had worked themselves into a state of frantic excitement, then with knotted ropes lashed the effigy till every vestige of clothing had been cut to tatters. During this process the ship’s bell kept up an incessant clang, and the captains of the ships served out grog to the men. Those not engaged in the flogging kept up a sort of rude chant intermixed with denunciations of the Betrayer. The ceremony ended with the burning of the effigy amid the jeers of the crowd.”
There is an indorsement on one of the indentures of gift to the parish of Hampstead stating that £40 had been given by a maid, deceased, to the intent that the churchwardens for the time being should provide and give to every one—rich and poor, great and small, young and old persons—inhabiting the parish, upon every Good Friday yearly for ever, one halfpenny loaf of wheaten bread.—Old English Customs and Charities, p. 16.
Oxfordshire.
Formerly, at Brazen-nose College, Oxford, the scholars had almonds, raisins, and figs for dinner on Good Friday, as appears by a receipt of thirty shillings, paid by the butler of the College, for “eleven pounds of almonds, thirty-five pounds of raisins, and thirteen pounds of figs, serv’d into Brazen-nose College, March 28th, 1662.”—Pointer’s Oxoniensis Academia, 1749, p. 71.
Surrey.
A custom, the origin of which is lost in the obscurity of time, prevails in the neighbourhood of Guildford of making a pilgrimage to St. Martha’s (or Martyr’s) Hill on Good Friday. Thither from all the country side youths and maidens, old folks and children, betake themselves, and gathered together on one of the most beautiful spots in Surrey, in full sight of an old Norman Church which crowns the green summit of the hill, beguile the time with music and dancing. Whatever the origin of this pilgrimage to St. Martha’s, it is apparently one that commends itself to the taste of the present generation, and is not likely to die out with the lapse of years, but to increase in popular estimation as long as the green hill lasts to attract the worshippers of natural beauty, or to furnish the mere votaries of pleasure with the excuse and the opportunity for a pleasant holiday.—Times, April 18th, 1870.
Sussex.
At Brighton, on this day, the children in the back streets bring up ropes from the beach. One stands on the pavement on one side, and one on the other, while one skips in the middle of the street. Sometimes a pair (a boy and a girl) skip together, and sometimes a great fat bathing-woman will take her place, and skip as merrily as the grandsire danced in Goldsmith’s Traveller. They call the day “Long Rope Day.” This was done as lately as 1863.—N. & Q. 3rd S. vol. iii. p. 444.