J. W.
Garlic Sunday.—The last Sunday of summer has been heretofore a day of great importance with the Irish, as upon it they first tried the new potato, and formed an opinion as to the prospects of future harvest. The day was always called, in the west in particular, "Garlic Sunday," perhaps a corruption of Garland Sunday. Can any one give the origin of this term, and say when first it was introduced?
U. U.
Dublin.
Custom of the Corporation of London.—In the evidence of Mr. Bennoch, given before the Royal Commissioners for inquiring into the corporation of the city of London, he stated that there is, amongst other payments, one of 133l. "for cloth to the great ministers of state," the city being bound by an old charter to give a certain amount of cloth annually to them. He subsequently states that this custom is supposed to be connected with the encouragement of the wool manufacture in its early history; and that four and a half yards of the finest black cloth that the country can produce are annually sent to the First Secretary of State, the Second Secretary of State, the Lord Chancellor, the Chamberlain of the Household, the Vice-Chancellor of the Household, the Treasurer of the Household, the Lord Steward, the Controller, the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, the Master of the Rolls, the Recorder of London, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Common Sergeant.
Can any of the readers of "N. & Q." give a more particular account of this custom?
Cervus.
General Stokes.—Can any of your readers give me any information respecting the parentage of General Stokes? In the historical table of remarkable events in the Jamaica Almanack for 1847 it says: "General Stokes, with 1600 men from Nevis, arrived and settled near Port Morant, anno Domini 1655." And in Bryan Edwards' work on Jamaica and the West Indies, mention is made of General Stokes in the following words:
"In the month of December, 1655, General Stokes, with 1600 men from Nevis, arrived in Jamaica, and settled near Port Morant. The family of the Morants of Vere (in Jamaica) are the lineal descendants of General Stokes, who took the name of Morant from the port at which he landed. General Stokes was governor of Nevis; and on his arrival in Jamaica was appointed one of the high commissioners for the Island."
H. H. M.