Strange times, strange manners!

A writer in the Spectator tells of a clerk who, like many of his fellows, used to convert “leviathan” into “that girt livin’ thing,” thus letting loose before his hearers’ imagination a whole travelling menagerie, from which each could select the beast which most struck his fancy.  This clerk was a picturesque personality, although, unlike his predecessor, he had discarded top-boots and cords for Sunday wear in favour of black broadcloth.  When not engaged in marrying or burying one of his flock, he fetched and carried for the neighbours from the adjacent country town, or sold herrings and oranges (what mysterious affinity is there between these two dissimilar edibles that they are invariably hawked in company?) from door to door.  During harvest he rang the morning “leazing bell” to start the gleaners to the fields, and every night he tolled the curfew, by which the villagers set their clocks.  He it was who, when the sermon was ended, strode with dignity from his box on the “lower deck” down the aisle to the belfry, and pulled the “dishing-up bell” to let home-keeping mothers know that hungry husbands and sons were set free.  Folks in those days were less easily fatigued than they are now.  Services were longer, the preacher’s “leanings to mercy” were less marked, and congregations counted themselves ill-used if they broke up under the two hours.  The boys stood in wholesome awe of the clerk, as well they might, for his eye was keen and his stick far-reaching.  Moreover, no fear of man prevented him from applying the latter with effect to the heads of slumberers during divine service.  By way of retaliation the youths, when opportunity occurred, would tie the cord of the “tinkler” to the weathercock, and the parish on a stormy night would be startled by the sound of ghostly, fitful ting-tangs.  To Sunday blows the clerk, who was afflicted with rheumatism, added weekday anathemas as he climbed the steep ascent to the bell-chamber and the yet steeper ladder that gave access to the leads of the tower.  The perpetual hostility that reigned between discipliner and disciplined bred no ill will on either side.  “Boys must be boys” and “He’s paid for lookin’ arter things” were the arguments whereby the antagonists testified their mutual respect, in both of which the parents concurred; and his severity did not cost the old man a penny when he made his Easter rounds to collect the “sweepings.”  It may, perhaps, be well to explain that the “sweepings” consisted of an annual sum of threepence which every householder contributed towards the cleaning of the church, and which represented a large part of the clerk’s salary[84].

[Footnote 84:  Spectator, 14 October, 1905.]

The Rev. C.C.  Prichard recollects a curious old character at Churchdown, near Gloucester, commonly pronounced “Chosen” in those days.