Dec. 23. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



505 



23. 



" To Stonyhurst, then, this gallant train, 

 As if in triumph turn'd again. 

 Mutually asking on the way, 

 Which dog had best perform'd that day ; - 

 But 'twas a riddle none could tell. 

 Because they'd all perform'd so well. 



24. 



" Therefore, since ended is the chace. 

 Let healths go round unto his Grace ; 

 To his illustrious Duchess too. 

 The like devotion let us shew ; 

 Next for Sir Nicholas let us pray. 

 And so conclude our hunting day." 



rOLK LOBE. 



The crooked Sixpence. — A bent coin is often 

 given in the West of England for luck. A crooked 

 sixpence is usually selected by careful grand- 

 mothers, aunts, and uncles, to bestow as the " han- 

 selling " of a new purse. The following extract, 

 from the Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, il- 

 lustrates the practice ; It occurs in the relation of 

 the martyrdom of Alice Benden at Canterbury, 

 1557 : 



" When she was at the stake she cast her handkerchief 

 unto one John Banks, requiring him to keep the same in 

 memory of her ; and from about her middle she took a 

 white lace, which she gave to her keeper, desiring him 

 to give the same to her brother Koger Hall, and to tell 

 him that it was the last band she was bound with except 

 the chain. A shilling also of Philip and Mary she took 

 forth, which her father had bowed and sent her when she 

 was first sent to prison," &c. 



S. R. P. 



Cure for the Toothache. — My old clerk in Wilt- 

 shire, whenever he was afflicted with this distressing 

 pain, had the singular habit of driving a nail into 

 an oak tree, and no other tree than the oak would 

 suit his pui'pose. Is it possible that the jarring 

 of the hammer upon the nerves had anything to 

 do with his peculiar remedy ? 



Henbt Abud, M. a. 



Vicarage, Uttoxeter. 



WOMEN S RIGHTS. 



The women of the last century seem to have 

 been able to take care of themselves, if we may 

 judge from the following advertisements taken 

 from a Philadelphia paper of 1768 : 



" Anthony Eedman, my inhuman husband, having 

 advertised me to the world in the most odious light, 

 justice to my character obliges me to take this method to 

 dem' his accusation, and to assure the public, that his 

 charges against me are without the least foundation in 

 truth ; and proceed, as I imagine, from the ill advice of 

 his pretended friends, added to the wild chimeras of his 

 own stupidly jealous and infatuated noddle. Catharine 

 Redman." — From Pennsylvania Chronicle, Feb. 8, 1768. 



« To tlie Public. 

 " Whereas Michael Herbert, of the city of Philadel- 

 phia, advertised me his wife, Alice Herbert, in this paper, 

 as having behaved in such a manner that he could not 

 live with me, which is a malicious falsehood : therefore, 

 for the satisfaction of my friends, as well as the justify- 

 ing myself to the public, I take this method to give a 

 true state of the case between me and mj'- husband ; to 

 convince the public what a brutish, malicious, scanda- 

 lous fellow he is; for it is well known to all my neigh- 

 bours and acquaintances, that I have behaved myself as 

 becomes a good subject of our sovereign lord the King; 

 and that I did, by all waj's and means, endeavour to get a 

 good honest livelihood ; and I can, wlien called upon, get 

 my neighbours, of sufficient credit, to testify the same; 

 and that I am neither a whore, thief, or a drunkard ; but 

 it being my misfortune to marry so disagreeable a person 

 as the said Michael Herbert is, and we two being of 

 different principles in regard to religion — he being a 

 Roman Catholic, and I always brought up in the prin- 

 ciples of the people called Quakers — and because 1 have 

 often refused to go to the chapel with him, he the said 

 Michael Herbert, from the time we have been married, 

 has denied me the common necessaries of life, contenting 

 himself from week's end to week's end with a bit of 

 bread and small beer; and notwithstanding I had two 

 boarders in the house, and what one of them paid was 

 more than what maintained the house — for I can prove, 

 though there were four in familj', I seldom laid out more 

 than six shillings per week in the market, and was 

 obliged, to prevent words, he being of so penurious a 

 disposition, to tell him it did not cost me above three 

 shillings per week — he has done all that lay in his 

 power to prejudice me ; and I should not say much amiss 

 if 1 said he perjured himself, when he went and swore 

 his life against me, for I can prove I never struck him a 

 blow ; therefore, I leave it to the candid reader, and the 

 impartial public, whether he has behaved as becomes a 

 husband ; or whether, after my behaviour and discretion 

 to him, he can justify his proceedings against me. Alice 

 Herbert." — From Pennsylvania Chronicle, Aug. 15, 1768. 



R. B. 



LEGEND OF THE COUNTY CLABE. 



Wh«n St. Patrick had, after many arguments, 

 converted Ussheen (Ossian) to Christianity, he 

 became a member of the saint's household, 

 and, being now a feeble, blind old man, he 

 had a servant to attend on him. It appears 

 that Ussheen's appetite corresponded to his gi- 

 gantic size, and that the saint's housekeeper 

 dealt his portion with a niggard hand ; for when 

 the old warrior remonstrated with her one day on 

 the scantiness of his meal, she tauntingly replied 

 that his large oat cake, his quarter of beef, and 

 his " miscawn" of butter would amply suffice a 

 better man. — " Ah," said he, " I could yet show 

 you an ivy leaf broader than your cake, a berry of 

 the quick beam larger than your miscawn, and the 

 leg of a blackbird larger than your quarter of beef" 

 The surly housekeeper, with the contempt often 

 shown to the aged and poor, gave Ussheen the lie 

 direct ; but he remained silent. Some time after 

 Ussheen directed his attendant to nail a raw hide 

 against the wall, and to dash the puppies of a wolf- 



