476 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[2848, No 24, June 14, °56, 
begin, On this day the young men yoke themselves and 
draw a plough about with music, and one or two persons 
in antic dresses, like jack-puddings, go from house to 
house, to gather money to drink; if you refuse them, they 
plough up your dunghill. We call them here the plough 
bullocks,” 
Agricultural ceremonies at the beginning of the 
year have according to all accounts been customary 
from time immemorial amongst the Chinese, Per- 
sians, Greeks, &c., and in most of them the plough 
figured conspicuously, ‘The Chinese custom is 
worth recording as a good specimen of such cus- 
toms, and no doubt as also one of the most ancient. 
Every spring the Emperor goes in a solemn 
manner to plough up a few ridges of land in order 
to animate the husbandmen by his example, and 
in the neighbourhood of every other city but 
Pekin the mandarin performs the ceremony : 
“On arrival at the field an offering is first made by the 
Emperor and all his court to Changti, to beseech him to 
increase and preserve the fruits of the earth; this con- 
cluded, the Emperor, attended by three princes and nine 
presidents of sovereign courts, proceeds forward, several 
great men carrying a valuable chest, which contains the 
seed tobesown, The Emperor having taken the plough, 
and ploughed several times backwards and forwards, re- 
signs it to one of the princes of the blood, who does the 
same, as in succession do the rest. After having ploughed 
in several places the Emperor sows the different grain; 
these are wheat, rice, millet, beans, and another kind of 
millet called cao-leang; and the day following the hus- 
bandmen finish the field, and are rewarded by the km- 
peror with four pieces of dyed cotton for clothes. The 
Governor of Pekin often goes to visit the field, which is 
cultivated with great care, and if he finds at any time 
a stalk that bears thirteen ears it is esteemed a good 
omen.” 
“He also goes in autumn to get in the corn, which is 
put into yellow sacks and deposited in the imperial 
granary, only to be used on the most solemn occasions.” 
The customs throughout the English counties 
are various. Your country readers might furnish 
some interesting notes on the subject with very 
little trouble. R. W. Hacxwoop. 
SUPPOSED DECISION OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH 
UPON THE VALIDITY OF ENGLISH ORDERS, 
(2 §, i, 290.) 
Being in Paris last April, and seeing on a 
friend’s table “N. & Q.” for the 12th of that 
month, I thought it a good opportunity to help 
the researches of Mr. Fraser, who asks, “* What 
other information may be obtained respecting this 
curiously arrived at decision?” On looking into 
A Glance behind the Grilles, I found that M. 
L’abbé Mailly was the reverend gentleman cited 
as the authority for the statement set forth by the 
lady writer of that work, and quoted by Mr. 
Fraser. I called at 26. Rue du Nord upon the 
Abbé, and showed him the whole passage in The 
Glance, M. Mailly at once assured me that it 
contained several mistakes relating to what he had 
incidentally mentioned in the course of a short 
conversation upon a totally different subject, 
namely, the “Sisters of Charity.” All that he 
did say was this: “About two years ago the 
question concerning Anglican Orders came to be 
chosen as the subject for one of those small con- 
ferences held monthly by the clergy of the good 
Abbé’s own and a neighbouring parish, nti 
no more than eighteen clergy altogether. The 
‘reporter’ on the occasion, that is, the priest who 
undertook to get up the subject to be discussed, 
laid before the conference the history of the 
question, and having noticed the arguments for 
and against, drew as his conclusion that Anglican 
Ordination was, and had all along been, invalid — 
no ordination at all, One of the clergy present, 
though not dissenting from the reporter’s views, 
but merely for the purpose of raising, as usual, a 
discussion, stated some of the arguments brought 
forward by Courayer in behalf of the validity of 
English orders. But there the question dropped, 
and was no further mooted; and as every one 
present entirely agreed with the reporter's con- 
clusion, the conference unanimously decided with- 
out more to do, that there was no sort of validity 
in English orders. In the minutes of the con- 
ference this decision was recorded, and, along with 
the report of the question, forwarded to the ar- 
chiepiscopal archives, wherein it may still be seen.” 
Such is M. L’abbé Mailly’s account of the bu- 
siness, and any one interested in the question may 
consult him at his residence, 26. Rue du Nord, 
Paris. 
Besides these small monthly conferences, 
wherein the clergy of every two neighbouring 
parishes meet for the discussion of questions con- 
nected with Theology, Liturgy, Scripture, Church 
History, &e., there are at Paris four meetings in 
the year for the mooting of cases of conscience, to 
which all the clergy, amounting to about six 
hundred, are invited, though not obliged to at- 
tend. Such conferences are not peculiar to Paris 
or France, but are held in England, Ireland, 
America, in most parts of the continent of Eu- 
rope, and, in general, throughout the Catholic 
Church. 
As I well know there are several readers of 
“N. & Q.” deeply interested in the question of 
Anglican Orders, I will add the following docu- 
ment, with a copy of which I was kindly favoured 
by a distinguished prelate in the pontifical court, 
while I was spending the winter at Rome, 
A.D. 1852-53. On the occasion of the Rt. Rev. 
Dr. Ives, titled the Protestant Bishop of North 
Carolina, U. S., coming to Rome to be reconciled 
to the church, the question of the validity of An- 
glican Orders awakened some attention among the 
English who happened to be there, and the con- 
sequence was the production from the archives of 
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