3 o’clock.—Poor Farmer Robinson’s house burned down by accidental fire. John Grey proposed a subscription among the company for the relief of the farmer, and gave no less than four pounds with this benevolent intent. (Mem. never saw him look so comely as at this moment.)
4 o’clock.—Went to prayers.
6 o’clock.—Fed hogs and poultry.
HAIR IN SEALS.
Stillingfleet, referring to a MS. author who wrote a chronicle of St. Augustine, says:—
He observes one particular custom of the Normans, that they were wont to put some of the hair of their heads or beards into the wax of their seals: I suppose rather to be kept as monuments, than as adding any strength or weight to their charters. So he observes that some of the hair of William, Earl of Warren, was in his time kept in the Priory of Lewis.
SCORNING THE CHURCH.
In North Durham, it is customary, in case that the banns of marriage are thrice published, and the marriage does not take place, for the refusing party, whether male or female, to pay forty shillings to the vicar as a penalty for scorning the church.
MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISEMENT.
The following strange advertisement from an old newspaper exhibits one of the customs of rural life in England more than a century ago:—