Face, widow of Edwin, king of Northumberland, is said to have been the first English nun; and the first nunnery in England appears to have been at Barking, in Essex, which was founded by Erkenwald, Bishop of London, wherein he placed a number of Benedictine or black nuns. The most rigid nuns are those of St. Clara, of the order of St. Francis, both of which individuals were born and lived in the same town: the nuns are called poor Clares, and both they and the monks wear grey clothes. Abbesses had formerly seats in parliament. In one, held in 694, says Spelman, they sat and deliberated, and several of them subscribed the decrees made in it. They sat, says Ingulphus, in a parliament held in 855. In the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I. four of them were summoned to a national council, viz. those of Shaftesbury, Barking, Winchester, and Wilton.
PRESENCE OF MIND—ESCAPE FROM A TIGER.
In 1812, a party of British naval and military officers were dining in a jungle at some distance from Madras, when a ferocious tiger rushed in among them, seized a young midshipman, and flung him across his back. In the first emotion of terror, the other officers had all snatched up their arms, and retired some paces from their assailant, who stood lashing his sides with his tail, as if doubtful whether he should seize more prey, or retire with that which he had already secured. They knew that it is usual with the tiger, before he seizes his prey, to deprive it of life, by a pat on the head, which generally breaks the skull; but this is not his invariable practice. The little midshipman lay motionless on the back of his enemy; but yet the officers, who were uncertain whether he had received the mortal pat or not, were afraid to fire, lest they should kill him together with the tiger. While in this state of suspense, they perceived the hand of the youth gently move over the side of the animal, and conceiving the motion to result from the convulsive throbs of death, they were about to fire, when, to their utter astonishment, the tiger dropped stone dead; and their young friend sprung from the carcass, waving in triumph a bloody dirk drawn from the heart, for which he had been feeling with the utmost coolness and circumspection, when the motion of his hand had been taken for a dying spasm.
COST OF ARTICLES IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
The following article is taken from Martin's History of Thetford. It is copied from an original record in that borough, when John le Forester was mayor, in the tenth year of Edward the Third, A.D. 1336. It is so far curious, as it exhibits an authentic account of the value of many articles at that time; being a bill, inserted in the town book, of the expenses attending the sending two light-horsemen from Thetford to the army, which was to march against the Scots that year.
| £ | s. | d. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| To two men chosen to go into the army against Scotland | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| For cloth, and to the tailor for making it into two gowns | 0 | 6 | 11 |
| For two pair of gloves, and a stick or staff | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| For two horses | 1 | 15 | 0½ |
| For shoeing these horses | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| For two pair of boots for the light-horsemen | 0 | 2 | 8 |
| Paid to a lad for going with the mayor to Lenn (Lynn), to take care of the horses (the distance between Thetford and Lynn is 53 miles) | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| To a boy for a letter at Lenn (viz., carrying it thither) | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Expenses for the horses of two light-horsemen for four days before they departed | 0 | 1 | 0 |
LAW AND ORDER IN THE STREETS OF LONDON IN 1733.
What an extraordinary state of things does the following extract from the Weekly Register of December 8th, 1733, disclose! The stages and hackney-coaches actually made open war upon private carriages. "The drivers," says the paragraph, "are commissioned by their masters to annoy, sink, and destroy all the single and double horse-chaises they can conveniently meet with, or overtake in their way, without regard to the lives or limbs of the persons who travel in them. What havoc these industrious sons of blood and wounds have made within twenty miles of London in the compass of a summer's season, is best known by the articles of accidents in the newspapers: the miserable shrieks of women and children not being sufficient to deter the villains from doing what they call their duty to their masters; for besides their daily or weekly wages, they have an extraordinary stated allowance for every chaise they can reverse, ditch, or bring by the road, as the term or phrase is." Verily, we who live in the present day have reason to rejoice that in some things there is a decided improvement upon "the good old times."
NEVER SLEEPING IN A BED.
Christopher Pivett, of the city of York, died 1796, aged 93. He was a carver and gilder by trade; but during the early part of his life served in the army, and was in the retinue of the Duke of Cumberland, under whose command he took part in the battle of Fontenoy, as he did at the battle of Dettingen under the Earl of Stair; he was likewise at the siege of Carlisle, and the great fight of Culloden. His house, after he had settled at York, being accidentally burnt down, he formed the singular resolution of never again sleeping in a bed, lest he should be burned to death whilst asleep, or not have time sufficient, should such a misfortune again befall him, to remove his property; and this resolution he rigidly acted upon during the last forty years of his life. His practice was to repose upon the floor, or on two chairs, or sitting in a chair, but always with his clothes on. During the whole of this period he lived entirely alone, cooked his own victuals, and seldom admitted any one into his habitation: nor would he ever disclose to any the place of his birth, or to whom he was related. He had many singularities, but possessed, politically as well as socially, a laudable spirit of independence, which he boldly manifested on several trying occasions. Among other uncommon articles which composed the furniture of his dwelling, was a human skull, which he left strict injunctions should be interred with him.