Slick or sleek stones are used by curriers to remove wrinkles and other irregularities in, and to smoothen the surface of hides and skins, after they have been converted into leather by the tanner. The stone which is considered to be the best for this purpose is quarried in the neighbourhood of Kendal.
The currier's sleek stone is an oblong square plate, measuring six inches in length by four inches in breadth, and half an inch in thickness. One of the longer edges of the stone is fixed into a groove in a wooden handle or stock, and hence it is also commonly called a stock stone.
The leather being spread out upon a table, the stock is held in both hands, and the opposite edge of the stone is pressed upon and rubbed over the surface of the leather. In a subsequent part of the process of currying the workman uses, in like manner, a slicker or sleeker made of steel, and finishes his work with a glass sleeker.
J. L. C.
Tenor Bell of Margate (Vol. i., p. 92.; Vol. v., p. 319.).
—The weight of this "ponderous tenor bell" is not mentioned; but there does not seem to be any particular "obscurity," whatever there may be of strangeness in the alleged mode of its transit by water. By the terms "mill-cog" of the poetaster is doubtless to be understood the cog-wheel of the miller, viz. that which more or less directly connects the motive agent with the shaft carrying the stones. Persons who happen to have noticed the large size and ponderous construction of the main cog-wheel in many an ancient flourmill will easily imagine that if set afloat it would carry a great weight; especially if prepared, as a missionary to the Hudson's Bay territories told me a small cart-wheel was rigged to transport him over the rivers, viz. by stretching a large skin over its area. It was, in all likelihood, to some contrivance of this kind that John de Dandelion and his dog have become so picturesquely and permanently connected with the history of Margate in "traditionary rhyme."
D.
Rhymes connected with Places (Vol. v., pp. 293. 374.).
—The following has been printed in the late John Dunkin's History of Dartford; but as topographical works have but a limited circulation, and the above-named author was fond of printing but few impressions of his works, I have taken the liberty of forwarding the lines to you:
"Sutton[8] for mutton,