NOTES AND QUERIES. 



C2nd s. VII. Jan. 15. '59. 



be exercised, was great ; and the minister, rather 

 a familiar preacher, seized the opportunity of lec- 

 turing all and sundry of the audience, — that if 

 " their insides were well known, many would be 

 found as guilty as the two poor sinners they had 

 come to see rebuked." A number of years ago, 

 when visiting the deserted church in the Clachan 

 of Catapsie, there was shown to me the ancient 

 " cutty stool " of the Kirk — a plank about three 

 feet long, supported on four wooden legs or pil- 

 lars two feet high, with the word repent rudely 

 cut on it. There is an extremely graphic poera 

 by Robert Burns of about 160 lines, not much 

 known, entitled " The Fornicator's Court," com- 

 mencing : — 



" In truth and honour's name — Amen, 

 Know all men by these presents plain, 

 The fourth of June at Mauchline given, 

 The year 'tween eighty -five and seven," &c. 



but not quite of a nature to be farther suitable 

 for the pages of "N.& Q." 



I have understood that now a private rebuke be- 

 fore the minister and his elders satisfies the Kirk ; 

 and in cases of ante-nujatial incontinence, on the pa- 

 rents professing penitence, and marriage having 

 been duly celebrated, baptism to the child is ad- 

 ministered, and church privileges restored to 

 them. G.. N. 



I have seen in the parish church of Latheron, 

 in Caithness, the sheet or sackcloth which had 

 been in use for that purpose. My father before 

 he left that county, a young man in the latter 

 end of last century, had seen a person do penance 

 in the sheet, as it was called ; and the last one who 

 underwent this punishment, as soon as the rebuke 

 was over, doffed the sheet and threw it on the top 

 of the laird's seat, which had a canopy over it 

 supported on four pillars, like a huge four-post 

 bed. It was there when he left the county, and 

 when he returned, in 1816, it was still lying in 

 undisturbed repose. I saw it in 1819, when I last 

 attended the parish church. 



Within the last few months I read of a case of 

 a sinner being rebuked before the congregation in 

 a country parish ; but the sheet was not used. 



R. G. 



Glasgow. 



I am unable to answer this inquiry ; but I very 

 well recollect, about fifteen years ago, seeing "the 

 cutty stool" standing in its accustomed place, be- 

 side the Precentor's seat, in a village kirk near 

 Edinburgh, and being told of a young woman 

 whom my informant knew having had lately to 

 undergo this severe mode of penance. It might 

 be curious if some correspondents would jot down 

 the different modes of penance in England and 

 Scotland. I remember seeing a collar affixed to 

 the porch of Duddingstone church, near Edin- 



burgh, which was used for those who had been 

 incontinent ; and for three successive Sundays 

 the condemned, with his neck fixed in the collar, 

 had to undergo the stare of the congregation after 

 divine service. James Fraseh. 



Cambridge. 



Happening to be in a kirk in the Presbytery 

 of Ellon, Aberdeenshire, in the summer of 1834, I 

 saw an erring sister (clothed in sackcloth) pub- 

 licly rebuked before the congregation, for what 

 a facetious medical friend of mine calls a com- 

 pound fracture of the seventh commandment. R. 



THE LETTER TAU THE SIGN OF THE HEBREW 

 WATION. 



(2"'» S. vi. 459.) 



The probable reason why the Hebrew letter 

 tau (n) has been viewed (according to Gwillim) 

 as the sign of the Hebrew nation, will be found in 

 the prophet Ezekiel, ix. 3, 4. A man, having a 

 writer's inkhorn by his side, is divinely com- 

 manded to go through the midst of Jerusalem, 

 " and set a mark " upon the foreheads of those 

 who are to be preserved from the vengeance 

 about to be executed on the guilty city. The 

 sentence is then pronounced (ver. 6.), " Slay ut- 

 terly old and young, .... but come not nigh any 

 man upon whom is the marh.^' 



The name of this mark, in the Hebrew, is iden- 

 tical with the name of the last letter of the He- 

 brew alphabet, tau (or more properly tdv, Ifl). 

 And the reason of the nominal agreement be- 

 tween the mark and the letter is this ; that the 

 letter tau was used by the Jews as a mark. Hence 

 Grotius observes, respecting the mark set on the 

 inhabitants of Jerusalem who were to be spared, 

 " non qualcunque signum, sed literam Thau hie sig- 

 nificari sensit et Chaldaeus et Theodotio:" — it 

 was not to be any kind of mark, but the letter tau. 

 This mark it is true, was to be employed, in the 

 instance before us, only to distinguish a favoured 

 portion. But the incident appears to have af- 

 forded occasion for regarding the tau as the mark 

 or sign of the whole Jewish nation. 



It is a curious circumstance that this letter tau, 

 the use of which as a mark, and more especially 

 as a signature, was probably suggested by its 

 standing at the end of the Hebrew alphabet, had 

 anciently the form of a cross ; so that the iden- 

 tical mark which is now used as a signature by 

 those who cannot write their names, did duty as a 

 signature ages ago. The letter tau, indeed, and 

 its correlatives in other languages, possessed the 

 crucial form in several ancient alphabets of the 

 East. But, what is still more to the purpose, tau 

 is found bearing the form of a cross upon Jewish 

 shekels. "^ In antic^uis siclis certissimum est talem 



