Straw Necklaces (Vol. ii., p. 511.).—Having only lately read the "Notes and Queries" (in fact, this being the first number subscribed for), I do not know the previous allusion. It makes me mention a curious custom at Carlisle, of the
servants who wish to be hired going into the marketplace of Carlisle, or as they call it "Carel," with a straw in their mouths. It is fast passing away, and now, instead of keeping the straw constantly in the mouth, they merely put it in a few seconds if they see any one looking at them. Anderson, in his Cumberland Ballads, alludes to the custom:—
"At Carel I stuid wi' a strae i' my mouth,
The weyves com roun me in clusters:
'What weage dus te ax, canny lad?' says yen."
H. W. D.
Library of the Church of Westminster (Vol. iii., p. 152.).—The statement here quoted from the Délices de la Grande Bretagne is scarcely likely to be correct. We all know how prone foreigners are to misapprehension, and therefore, how unsafe it is to trust to their observations. In this case, may not the description of the Bibliothèque Publique, which was open night and morning, during the sittings of the courts of justice, have originated merely from the rows of booksellers' stalls in Westminster-hall?
J. G. N.
The Ten Commandments (Vol. iii., p. 166.).—Waterland (vol. vi. p. 242., 2nd edition, Oxford, 1843) gives a copy of the Decalogue taken from an old MS. In this the first two commandments are embodied in one. Leighton, in his Exposition of the Ten Commandments, when speaking on the point of the manner of dividing them, refers in a vague manner to Josephus and Philo.
R. V.