—In the north of Lincolnshire the sore mouth with which babies are often troubled is called the frog. And it is a common practice with mothers to hold a real live frog by one of its hind legs, and allow it to sprawl about within the mouth of a child so afflicted. Is the same remarkable custom known elsewhere?
The disease is properly called the thrush, and bears some resemblance to the disorder of the same name which affects the frog of the horse's foot. I wish someone would unravel this entanglement.
W. S.
North Lincolnshire.
An Oath in Court (Vol. iv., pp. 151. 214).
—Some time since, a woman refused to be sworn because she was in the family way. In The Times of the 5th March, a woman at Chelmsford is represented as having said: "I swear this positively on the condition I am in, being about to become a mother?"
Can anybody explain these facts?
A. C.
St. Clement's and St. Thomas's Day.
—I wish to inquire what is supposed to be the origin of begging apples, &c., on St. Clement's Day, and money (formerly wheat) on St. Thomas's? There is hardly any trace left of the former saint's day in this neighbourhood (Worcestershire, on the border of Staffordshire), but I have had convincing proof to-day that St. Thomas is not forgotten, for we have had plenty of visitors, tomorrow being Sunday.