363. Chalk-back Day.
—At Diss, Norfolk, it is customary for the juvenile populace, on the Thursday before the third Friday in September (on which latter day a fair and "session" for hiring servants are held), to mark and disfigure each other's dress with white chalk, pleading a prescriptive right to be mischievous on "chalk-back day." Does such a practice exist elsewhere, and what is its origin?
S. W. RIX.
Beccles.
364. Moravian Hymns.
—Can any of your readers give me an account of the earlier editions of the Moravian hymns? In the Oxford Magazine for July, 1769, some extraordinary specimens are given, which profess to be taken from "a book of private devotions, printed for the use of the Unitas Fratrum, or Moravians." One of them is—
"To you, ye wounds, we pay
A thousand tears a-day,
That you have us presented
With many happy virgin rows.