- 362 A Winter in Cornwall. [Sess. 
vandalistic processes are, of course, the most interesting, and 
some of the old oak-carvings on the wagon roofs and pew 
ends, albeit of a rude type, are really worth studying. In a 
few the carved chancel-screens still exist, with faded remains 
of coloured pictures of Scriptural events painted on the panels. 
Others, again, have armorial bearings still visible on the ends 
of the box-shaped pews; and in one church there were numbers 
of wooden boards, like escutcheons, fastened to the walls and 
pillared arches, with illuminated texts painted on them. 
Many mural monuments exist, as well as memorial slabs on 
the floors: some of the former are quite unique in design, the 
various materials employed in their construction being alabaster, 
marble, varieties of granite, slate, and even wood painted to 
represent stone. One evidently was intended for a delineation 
of the last day ; while another consisted of three tiers of dumpy 
wooden images like Chinese gods, probably portraying three 
generations. In the parish church of Lostwithiel is a small 
alabaster carving intended to show the flaying of St Bartholo- 
mew, after whom the church is called: one can see a fellow 
deliberately skinning the martyr with a small knife. These 
examples could be added to indefinitely. In a few of the 
sacred edifices were old dilapidated boards in the belfry con- 
taining instructions to the bellringers, some of them in doggerel 
rhyme of the worst type. In St Cleer parish church, near 
Liskeard, various things were specified that these individuals 
were to avoid, such as quarrelling, striking, and swearing, 
under a penalty of sixpence for each offence. Truly the bell- 
ringers of olden times would appear to have been rather a . 
rowdy lot! 
Before passing from the churches to other antiquities, one 
peculiarity may be brought under notice. In two, if not more, 
were remains of what is called “The Leper’s Squint.” To 
understand what this means, we must go back to days, happily 
departed, when that loathsome disease leprosy was not so very 
uncommon in Britain. The wretched sufferers, while pre- 
vented’ from mixing with ordinary mortals, were not entirely 
debarred the consolation of religious devotions, and were ad- 
mitted into churches by a side door and allowed to stand or 
sit in a space apart from the audience, probably screened off. 
To permit of them seeing the priest at the altar, a slanting 
