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CURIOUS MANORIAL CUSTOM.

At King’s Hill, about half a mile north-east of Rocford Church, Essex, is held what is called the Lawless Court, a whimsical custom, the origin of which is not known.  On the Wednesday morning next after Michaelmas day, the tenants are bound to attend upon the first cock-crowing, and to kneel and do their homage, without any kind of light, but such as heaven will afford.  The steward of the court calls all such as are bound to appear, with as low a voice as possible, giving no notice when he goes to execute his office; however, he that does not give an answer is deeply amerced.  They are all to whisper to each other, nor have they any pen and ink, but supply that deficiency with a coal; and he that owes suit and service, and appears not, forfeits to the lord of the manor double his rent every hour he is absent.

A tenant, some years ago, forfeited his land for non attendance, but was restored to it, the lord taking only a fine.

HALBERT H.

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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

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THE PET DOG.

Dogs, when they are sure of having their own way, have sometimes ways as odd as those of the unfurred, unfeathered animals, who walk on two legs, and talk, and are called rational.  My beautiful, white greyhound, Mayflower, for instance, is as whimsical as the finest lady in the land.  Amongst her other fancies, she has taken a violent affection for a most hideous stray dog, who made his appearance here about six months ago, and contrived to pick up a living in the village, one can hardly tell how.  Now appealing to the charity of old Rachael Strong, the laundress—­a dog-lover by profession; now winning a meal from the light-footed and open-hearted lasses at the Rose; now standing on his hind-legs to extort, by sheer beggary, a scanty morsel from some pair of “drowthy cronies,” or solitary drover, discussing his dinner or supper on the alehouse-bench; now catching a mouthful, flung to him in pure contempt by some scornful gentleman of the shoulder-knot, mounted on his throne, the coach-box, whose notice he had attracted by dint of ugliness; now sharing the commons of Master Keep the shoemaker’s pigs; now succeeding to the reversion of the well-gnawed bone of Master Brow the shopkeeper’s fierce house-dog; now filching the skim-milk of Dame Wheeler’s cat:—­spit at by the cat; worried by the mastiff; chased by the pigs; screamed at by the dame; stormed at by the shoemaker; flogged by the shopkeeper; teased by all the children, and scouted by all the animals of the parish;—­but yet living through his griefs, and bearing them patiently, “for sufferance is the badge of all his tribe;”—­and even seeming to find, in an occasional full meal, or a gleam of sunshine, or a whisp of dry straw, on which to repose his sorry carcass, some comfort in his disconsolate condition.