Nor press his coming cheese, a.
But take my swing both night and day,
I'm sure it is no sin, a:
And as for what the grave ones say,
I value not a pin, a.
BARBERS.
The barber's pole, one of the popular relics of Merrie England, is still to be seen in some of the old streets of London and in country towns, painted with its red, blue, and yellow stripes, and surmounted with a gilt acorn. The lute and violin were formerly among the furniture of a barber's shop. He who waited to be trimmed, if of a musical turn, played to the company. The barber himself was a nimble-tongued, pleasant-witted fellow. William Rowley, the dramatist, in "A Search for Money, 1609," thus describes him:—"As wee were but asking the question, steps me from over the way (over-listning us) a news-searcher, viz. a barber: hee, hoping to attaine some discourse for his next patient, left his baner of basons swinging in the ayre, and closely eave-drops our conference. The saucie treble-tongu'd knave would insert somewhat of his knowledge (treble-tongu'd I call him, and thus I prove't: hee has a reasonable mother-tonger, his barber-surgions tongue; and a tongue betweene two of his fingers, and from thence proceeds his wit, and 'tis a snapping wit too). Well, sir, hee (before hee was askt the question,) told us that the wandring knight (Monsier L'Argent) sure was not farre off; for on Saterday-night hee was faine to watch till morning to trim some of his followers, and its morning they went away from him betimes. Hee swore hee never clos'd his eyes till hee came to church, and then hee slept all sermon-time; (but certainly hee is not farre afore, and at yonder taverne showing us the bush) I doe imagine hee has tane a chamber." In ancient times the barber and the tailor, as news-mongers, divided the crown. The barber not only erected his pole as a sign, but hung his basins upon it by way of ornament.
BEES OBEDIENT TO TRAINING.
Though it is customary in many rural districts of England, when bees are swarming, to make a clanging noise with metal implements, under the impression—an erroneous one we believe—that it will induce the swarm to settle, it is not generally supposed that bees are susceptible of being trained to obey in many respects the orders of their teacher. Such, however, is the fact, and an instance of it occurs in the following advertisement, which we have copied from an old newspaper. We give it as we find it, but it is not very clear what locality is meant by "their proper places":—
"At the Jubilee Gardens, Dobney's, 1772. Daniel Wildman rides, standing upright, one foot on the saddle, and the other on the horse's neck, with a curious mask of bees on his face. He also rides, standing upright on the saddle, with the bridle in his mouth, and, by firing a pistol, makes one part of the bees march over a table, and the other part swarm in the air, and return to their proper places again."