—In Suffolk it is a practice on New Year's Eve to open a Bible at midnight, and the passage upon which they stick a pin will be the luck (good or bad) that attends them the following year.
R. J. S.
Mode of Discovering the Bodies of the Drowned.
—What must we think of the following, transcribed from the Gentleman's Mag., vol. xxxvii. p. 189.? Can such things be?
"WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1767.
"An inquisition was taken at Newbery, Berks, on the body of a child near two years old, who fell into the river Kennet, and was drowned. The jury brought in their verdict accidental death. The body was discovered by a very singular experiment, which was as follows:—After diligent search had been made in the river for the child, to no purpose, a two-penny loaf, with a quantity of quicksilver put into it, was set floating from the place where the child it was supposed had fallen in, which steered its course down the river upwards of half a mile, before a great number of spectators, when the body happening to lay on the contrary side of the river, the loaf suddenly tacked about, and swam across the river, and gradually sunk near the child, when both the child and loaf were immediately brought up, with grabbers ready for that purpose."
Is this experiment ever tried at the present time, and do there exist any authentic accounts of such trials and their results?
* & ?
Manpadt House.
Somersetshire Rhyme.—In Vol. iii., p. 206., there is mention of a traditional rhyme on Lynn and Rising. At Taunton, in Somersetshire, there is a similar tradition current: