12 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



namely, a goose wliicli has fattened on the grains which 

 have shelled ont in the stubbles, and of which the supply 

 was no doubt considerably more in the old days of 

 sickle reaping than it is under the modern system of 

 gathering the corn crops. 



The custom which prevails at the Great Hospital in 

 St. Helen's, Norwich, of supplying the aged inmates 

 with a dinner of roast goose on new Michaelmas-day, 

 probably dates back to the year 1762, when, according 

 to extracts from the records of the Institution, kindly 

 furnished me by Mr. Gr. Simpson, the governor, Mr. 

 John Spurrell " liberally contributed a yearly sum to be 

 expended in feasts." In 1816, however, the annual 

 dinner of roast goose having been discontinued since the 

 death of the former benefactor, Mr. Eobert Partridge 

 signified his intention to the Hospital Committee of 

 giving one hundred pounds as a benefaction that the 

 gift of a Michaelmas dinner of goose to the old people 

 of that hospital " might be revived and Continued in 

 future." Up to the year 1846, a difficult problem in 

 carving presented itself, inasmuch as each bird had to 

 be divided into five equal parts, but each inmate is now 

 supplied with a quarter of a goose, an arrangement 

 which appears to have given general satisfaction, even 

 though this savoury dish has been described as "too 

 much for one but not enough for two. 



Prior to the opening of the railway to Norwich in 

 1845, immense numbers of tame geese, reared in this 

 county, travelled annually by road to London ;* as in small 



watches, as well as among the silk-dyers, when they commence the 

 use of candles, to have their annual way-goose. ' Goose-day' is now 

 in nearly all the London houses held in May or June, instead of 

 Michaelmas, and is quite unconnected with the lighting-up." 



JOHN TIMES. 



* In Daniel's "Kural Sports" (vol. ii., p. 93), an amusing 

 anecdote is given of a considerable bet mado between Lord 



