314 On some Curiosities and Statistics of Parish Registers. 



but their books are mostly gone^ and tbey are now much oftener the 

 receptacles of old nandle-ends than of books or parochial documents. 



Thus matters stood until the reign of Charles 1., towards the close 

 of which the growing disaffection and disunion existing in the 

 kingdom began to show upon the registers. In the books of St. 

 Helenas Church, Auckland, Durham, I find, under date 1633, that 

 " Mr. John Vaux, our minister was suspended. . . . Mr. John 

 Cowper, of Durham, served in his place, and left out divers christen- 

 ings unrecorded and registered others disorderly." And at Graineford 

 in the same county, is this note : " Courteous reader, this is to let 

 thee understand that many children were left unrecorded or un- 

 registered, but the reason and cause was thus : — Some would and 

 some would not, being of a fickle condition as the time was then : 

 this being their end and aim, to save a groate from the poor clarke, 

 so they would rather have them unredgestered. But now . . . 

 it is their design to have them redgestered." There is a sort of 

 Tommy Goodchild air of piety about this excellent resolution on the 

 part of the inhabitants of Gainford which we will hope was justified 

 by their subsequent action. At Fittleton in this county we find one 

 of these books headed: "Ann, D""'. 1663. Mai'riages in the parish 

 of Fittleton and Haxton since my coming to bee Eector, there being 

 no just register kept before. Steph. Jay, Rector.''^ 



At Chart in Kent. " Marye the daughter of John Smith, Esq., 

 was baptized on the 13th day of January in 1660, by John Case, 

 Vicar. The first that hath been baptized at the font since it has 

 been re-erected by the appoynmt. of the said Mr. Smith, being full 

 sixteen years paste. One Thomas Scoone, an elder, having out of 

 his blinde zeale defaced and pulled it downe, wt. other ornaments 

 belonging to the churehe." Again, at Lowestoft, in Suffolk, " For 

 some time following, there was in this towne neither minister nor 

 Clarke, but the inhabitants were inforced to procure now one and 

 then another to baptize their children, by which means there was 

 no register kept, only those few hereafter mentioned were by myself 

 baptized in those intervals when I enjoyed my freedom," At Stain- 

 drop, Durham, under date " 1644. From this time to 1646 through 

 want of a minister and carelessness of the cleark, during the wars, 



