It would take too long to mention all the numerous observances which still linger on in various places in connection with this ancient and interesting custom. In most parishes where it is still kept up, the ceremony is performed annually on Ascension Day. A friend of the writer thus describes the way in which it is carried out in one of the outlying districts of London:—
“We assembled, by invitation, at the Vestry Hall, about 10 o’clock a.m. I should think there were thirty or forty gentlemen present, including the rector, churchwardens, and various officers of the parish, and about the same number of schoolboys. The gentlemen wore rosettes, and carried rods, and the boys were provided with long willow wands decked with blue ribbons. The parish beadle, carrying the mace, marched in front. When we came to any of the boundary stones of the parish, they were duly examined to see if they were in their proper position, and then the boys gave three cheers, and beat them with their wands. We marched through private houses and warehouses, over walls, ditches, canals, etc., and were taken down the river in a barge, until at last we came to our starting-point again about 4-30 in the afternoon. The churchwardens then presented each of the boys with a new shilling and dismissed them.”
In these days of ordnance maps, there may be very little practical utility in “Beating the Bounds,” but as Wordsworth says:—
“Many precious relics
And customs of our rural ancestry
Are gone or stealing from us.”
Time is ever busy blotting out the land-marks which our ancestors reared with so much patience for our behoof. It is well, therefore, if occasionally, with reverential spirit, we try to set in order the fragments of those that still remain. In so doing, we may perchance cull some useful lesson, and ere they pass away for ever, haply profit by the experiences which they record.
The Story of the Crosier.
By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack, b.a.
The staff of authority, which we have in so many forms, as sceptre, crosier, mace, wand, or otherwise, has its origin in each case in one of two ideas. Sometimes it is an instrument of correction; thus the churchwarden’s staff, the wand or rod of a royal usher, and of a beadle, and probably also the mace of a mayor, were all, like the fasces of a Roman governor, intended to correct the unruly, or to forcibly clear a way, when necessary, for the progress of the dignitary before whom they were borne. In other cases this symbol of authority, as it has now become, was originally nothing more or less than the trusty staff on which the aged ruler leaned, as on a modern walking stick. All language points to the fact that age was at first considered an essential condition of dignity and authority, for almost all terms of respect imply the seniority of the person addressed. Sir, sieur or monsieur, signor, senor, are of course but varied forms of the word senior; and we have more particular instances in the terms sire, senator, and alderman, in matters of state, with patriarch, father (applied to a bishop or a priest) and pope, abbot, priest, presbyter, or elder, in the Church. Thus it came to pass that in the earliest times the aged ruler was usually seen supporting his weight of years by the help of his staff; and the step from this familiar sight to the idea that the staff symbolized his rule, was simple and natural. The sceptre, therefore, which was the needful support of Homer’s old councillors, has become the emblem of royal power; and the crutch-stick of the aged bishop is transfigured into the crosier.