Is it Butler, Swift, or who, that says,

  “A Chrysostom to smoothe his band in”?

Whenever this was written, it must have referred to our modern bands.

Who amongst the clergy are entitled to wear a scarf?  Is it the badge of a chaplain only? or what circumstances justify its being worn?

Alfred Gatty.

July 1. 1850.

Bands (Vol. ii., p. 76.).—­An early example of the collar, approaching to the form of our modern bands, may be seen in the portrait of Cardinal Beatoun, who was assassinated in 1546.  The original is in Holyrood Palace, and an engraving in Mr. Lodge’s Portraits.  The artist is unknown, but from the age of the face one may infer that it was painted about 1540.

C.H.

Jewish Music (Vol. ii., p. 88.).—­See a host of authorities on the subject of Hebrew music and musical instruments in Winer’s Realwoerterbuch vol. ii., pp. 120. seq., 3d edit.  There is a good abstract respecting them in Jahn’s Hebrew Antiquities, sect. 92-96.

C.H.

North Sides of Churchyards unconsecrated (Vol. ii., p. 55.).—­In illustration of, not in answer to, Mr. Sansom’s inquiry, I beg to offer the following statement.  During a long series of years an average of about 150 corpses has been annually deposited in Ecclesfield churchyard, which has rendered it an extremely crowded cemetery.  But, notwithstanding these frequent interments, my late sexton told me that he remembered when there was scarcely one grave to the north of the church, it being popularly considered that only suicides, unbaptised persons, and still-born children ought to be buried there.  However, when a vicar died about twenty-seven years ago, unlike his predecessors, who had generally been buried in the chancel, he was laid in a tomb on the north side of the churchyard, adjoining the vicarage.  From this time forward the situation lost all its evil reputation amongst the richer inhabitants of the parish, who have almost entirely occupied it with family vaults.

Whether the prejudice against the north side of our churchyard arose from an idea that it was unconsecrated, I cannot tell but I suspect that, from inherited dislike, the poor are still indisposed towards it.  When the women of the village have to come to the vicarage after nightfall, they generally manage to bring a companion, and hurry past the gloomy end of the north transept as if they knew

  “that close behind
  Some frightful fiend did tread.”

I cannot help fancying that the objection is attributable to a notion that evil spirits haunt the spot in which, possibly from very early times, such interments took place as my sexton described.  As a suggestion towards a full solution of this popular superstition, I would ask whether persons who formerly underwent ecclesiastical excommunication were customarily buried on the north side of churchyards?