England in the Days of Old Part 9

Bells as Time-Tellers.

The ringing of the bell in bygone times was general as a signal to commence and to close the daily round of labour. In some of the more remote towns and villages of old England the custom lingers at the ingathering of the harvest. At Driffield, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, for example, the harvest bell is still rung at five o'clock in the morning to arouse the labourers from their slumbers, and at seven in the evening the welcome sound of the bell intimates the time for closing work for the day.

References to this subject may sometimes be found in parish accounts and other old church doc.u.ments. In the parish chest of Barrow-on-Humber, Lincolnshire, is preserved a copy of the "Office and Duty of the Parish Clerk," bearing date of 1713, stating:--

"Item.--He is to ring a Bell Every working day morning at Break of the day, and continue the ringing thereof until All Saints, and also to ring a Bell Every Evening about the sunseting until harvest be fully ended: which Bells are to begin to ring from the beginning of the harvest."

We learn from an old survey of the parish, still retained amongst the church papers, the reward given to the clerk for ringing the harvest bell.

Says the doc.u.ment:--

"The Clarke Receiveth from Every Cottoger at Easter for Ringing the Day and Night Bell in Harvest two pecks of wheat."

Barrow-on-Humber became famous for its bells, beer, and singers. An old rhyme states:--

"Barrow for ringing, And Barrow for singing, And the Oak for good stout ale."

The Oak is the sign of the village inn, and a place of more than local reputation for its strong, home-brewed ale.

We have traces of the custom of ringing the harvest bell in various parts of the Midlands. At Moreton and at Walgrave, in Northamptonshire, the harvest bell was rung at four o'clock in the morning. At Spratton, Wellingborough, and other places in the county, the custom is still remembered, but not kept up.

It was customary in many places, when the last load of grain was brought home, to deck it with the boughs of the oak and ash, and a merry peal of the church bells made known the news that the farmer had ended his harvest, the farm labourers riding on the top of the load to sing--

"Harvest home! harvest home!

The boughs they do shake, the bells they do ring, So merrily we bring the harvest in, harvest in!

So merrily we bring the harvest in."

In some of the more remote villages of the country, the gleaners' bell is rung as a signal to commence gleaning. By this means, to use the words of Mr. Thomas North, our leading authority on bell lore, the old and feeble, as well as the young and active, may have a fair start. At Lyddington, Rutland, says Mr. North, the clerk claims a fee of a penny a week from women and big children, as a recompense for his trouble. The parish clerk at West Deeping, Lincolnshire, claimed twopence a head from the gleaners, but as they refused to pay, he declined to ring the bell.

Bearing on this theme may be included particulars of a bell formerly rung at Louth when the harvest on the "Gatherums" was ripe. "A piece of ground so called," writes Mr. North, "was in former times cultivated for the benefit of the poor. When the 'pescods' were ripe, the church bell was rung, which gave warning to the poor that the time had arrived when they might gather them; hence (it is said) _gather 'em_ or _gatherum_." From the church accounts is drawn the following:

"1536. Item for Knyllyng the bell in harvest for gatheringe of the pescods iiijd."

Similar entries occur in the books of the church.

An inscription on a bell at Coventry, dated 1675, states:--

"I ring at six to let men know When to and fro' their work to goe."

At St. Ives a bell bears a pithy inscription as follows:--

"Arise, and go about your business."

The bells of Bow are amongst the best known in England, and figure in the legendary lore as well as in the business life of London. Every reader is familiar with the story of d.i.c.k Whittington leaving the city in despair, resting on Highgate Hill, and hearing the famous bells, which seemed to say in their merry peals--

"Turn again, Whittington, Thou worthy citizen, Lord Mayor of London."

In 1469, an order was given by the Court of the Common Council for Bow bell to be rung every night at nine o'clock. Nine was the recognised time for tradesmen to close their shops. The clerk, whose duty it was to ring the bell, was irregular in his habits, and the late performance of his duties disappointed the toiling apprentices, who thus addressed him:--

"Clerk of Bow bell, With thy yellow locks, For thy late ringing Thy head shall have knocks."

The clerk replied:--

"Children of Cheape, Hold you all still, For you shall hear Bow Bell Ring at your will."

The foregoing rhymes take us back to a period before clocks were in general use in this country. The parentage of the present clock cannot be traced with any degree of certainty. We learn that as early as 996, Gerbert, a distinguished Benedictine monk (subsequently Pope Sylvester II.), constructed for Magdeburg a clock, with a weight as a motive power.

Clocks with weights were used in monasteries in Europe in the eleventh century. It is supposed that they had not dials to indicate the time, but at certain intervals struck a bell to make known the time for prayers.

From the fact that a clock-keeper was employed at St. Paul's, London, in 1286, it is presumed that there must have been a clock, but we have not been able to discover any details respecting it. There was a clock at Westminster in 1290, and two years later 30 was paid for a large clock put up at Canterbury Cathedral. Thirty pounds represented a large sum of money in the year 1292. About 1326 an astronomical clock was erected at St. Albans. It was the work of Richard de Wallingford, a blacksmith's son of the town, who rose to the position of Abbot there. In the earlier half of the fourteenth century are traces of numerous other clocks in England.

According to Haydn's "Dictionary of Dates," in the year 1530 the first portable clock was made. This statement does not agree with a writer in "Chambers's Encyclopaedia" (edition 1890). "The date," we are told in that work, "when portable clocks were first made, cannot be determined. They are mentioned in the beginning of the fourteenth century. The motive power must have been a mainspring instead of a weight. The Society of Antiquaries of England possess one, with the inscription in Bohemian that it was made at Prague, by Jacob Zech, in 1525. It has a spring for motive power, with fusee, and is one of the oldest portable clocks in a perfect state in England."

It is a.s.serted that no clock in this country went accurately before the one was erected at Hampton Court, in 1540. Shakespeare, in his _Love's Labour's Lost_, gives us an idea of the unsatisfactory manner clocks kept time in the days of old. He says:--

... "Like a German clock, Still a-repairing; ever out of frame; And never going aright."

Coming down to later times, we may give a few particulars of the difficulty of ascertaining the time in the country in the earlier years of the last century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLOCK, HAMPTON COURT PALACE.]

Norrisson Scatcherd, the historian of Morley, near Leeds, gives in his history, published in 1830, an amusing sketch of a local worthy named John Jackson, better known as "Old Trash," poet, schoolmaster, mechanic, stonecutter, land-measurer, etc., who was buried at Woodkirk on May 19th, 1764. "He constructed a clock, and in order to make it useful to the clothiers who attended Leeds market from Earls and Hanging Heaton, Dewsbury, Chickenley, etc., he kept a lamp suspended near the face of it, and burning through the winter nights, and he would have no shutters nor curtains to his window, so that the clothiers had only to stop and look through it to know the time. Now, in our age of luxury and refinement, the accomodation thus presented by 'Old Trash' may seem insignificant and foolish, but I can a.s.sure the reader that it was not.

The clothiers in the early part of the eighteenth century were obliged to be upon the bridge at Leeds, where the market was held, by about six o'clock in the summer, and seven in the winter; and hither they were convened by a bell anciently pertaining to a Chantry Chapel, which once was annexed to Leeds Bridge. They did not all ride, but most went on foot.

They did not carry watches, for few of them had ever possessed such a valuable. They did not dine on fish, flesh, and fowl, with wine, etc., as some do now. No! no! The careful housewife wrapped up a bit of oatcake and cheese in a little checked handkerchief, and charged her husband to mind and not get above a pint of ale at 'The Rodney.' Would Jackson's clock then be of no use to men who had few such in their villages? Who seldom saw a watch, but took much of their intelligence from the note of the cuckoo."

For an extended period, the curfew bell has been a most important time-teller. The sounds are no longer heard as the signal for putting out fires, as they were in the days of the Norman kings. It is generally a.s.serted that William the Conqueror introduced the curfew custom into England, but it is highly probable that he only enforced a law which had long been in existence in the kingdom, and which prevailed in France, Italy, Spain, and other countries on the Continent. Houses at this period were usually built of wood, and fires were frequent and often fatal, and on the whole it was a wise policy to put out household fires at night. The fire as a rule was made in a hole in the middle of the floor, and the smoke escaped through the roof. In an account of the manners and customs of the English people, drawn up in 1678, the writer states that before the Reformation, "Ordinary men's houses, as copyholders and the like, had no chimneys, but flues like louver holes; some of them were in being when I was a boy." In the year 1103, Henry I. modified the curfew custom. In "Liber Albus," we find a curious picture of London life under some of the Plantagenet kings, commencing with Edward I. It was against the city regulations for armed persons to wander about the city after the ringing of the curfew bell.

We may infer from a circ.u.mstance in the closing days of William I., that from a remote period there was a religious service at eight o'clock at night. It will be remembered that the king died from the injuries received by the plunging of his horse, caused by the animal treading on some hot ashes. Shortly before his death he was roused from the stupor which clouded his mind, by the ringing of the vesper bell of a neighbouring church. He asked if it were in England and if it were the curfew bell that he heard. On being told that he was in his "own Normandy," and the bell was for evening prayer, he "charged them bid the monks pray for his soul, and remained for a while dull and heavy."

At Tamworth, in 1390, a bye-law was pa.s.sed, and "it provided that no man, woman, or servant should go out after the ringing of the curfew from one place to another unless they had a light in their hands, under pain of imprisonment." For a long period it was the signal for closing public-houses.

The Age of Snuffing.

In this country old customs linger long, and although the age of snuffing has pa.s.sed away, in some quarters the piquant pinch still finds favour.

Our ancient munic.i.p.al corporations have been reformed, but old usages are still maintained and revived. In 1896 we saw an account in the newspapers of an amusing episode which occurred during a meeting of the Pontefract Town Council. One of the aldermen, noticing that the councillors had "to go borrowing" snuff, suggested the re-introduction of the old Corporation snuff-box. The official box, in the shape of an antler, was unearthed from underneath the aldermanic bench amidst much amus.e.m.e.nt, and the Mayor promised ere another sitting the article in question should be duly cleaned and replenished with the stimulating powder. Sir Albert K. Rollit, the learned and genial member of Parliament for South Islington, when Mayor of his native town of Hull a few years ago, presented to his brother members of the Corporation a ma.s.sive and valuable snuff-box. The gift was much appreciated. In a compilation recently published under the t.i.tle of "The Corporation Plate and Insignia of Office, &c., of the Cities and Towns of England and Wales," will be found particulars of snuff-boxes belonging to some of the older munic.i.p.al bodies. In bygone times taking snuff was extremely popular, its palmy days in England being during the eighteenth century. Snuff was praised in poetry and prose. Peer and peasant, rich and poor, the lady in her drawing-room and the humble housewife alike enjoyed the pungent pinch. The snuff-box was to be seen everywhere.

The earliest allusion we have to snuffing occurs in the narrative of the second voyage of Columbus in 1494. It is there related by Roman Pane, the friar, who accompanied the expedition, that the aborigines of America reduced tobacco to a powder, and drew it through a cane half a cubit long; one end of this they placed in the nose and the other upon the powder. He also stated that it purged them very much.

Snuff and other forms of tobacco on their introduction had many bitter opponents. After the Great Plague the popularity of tobacco and snuff increased, for during the time of the terrible visitation both had been largely used as disinfectants. There is a curious entry in Thomas Hearne's Diary, 1720-21, bearing on this theme. He writes as follows under date of January 21:--"I have been told that in the last great plague in London none that kept tobacconists' shops had the plague. It is certain that smoaking was looked upon as a most excellent preservative. In so much that even children were obliged to smoak. And I remember that I heard formerly Tom Rogers, who was yeoman beadle, say that when he was that year when the plague raged a schoolboy at Eton, all the boys in the school were obliged to smoak in the school every morning, and that he was never whipped so much in his life as he was one morning for not smoaking." Pepys says in his Diary on June 7, 1665:--"The hottest day that ever I felt in my life.

This day, much against my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and 'Lord have mercy upon us!' writ there; which was a sad sight to me, being the first of the kind that to my remembrance I ever saw. It put me into ill-conception of myself and my smell, so that I was forced to buy some roll tobacco to smell and chew, which took apprehension." Another impetus to the habit of snuff-taking was given in 1702. Our Fleet was under the command of Sir George Rooke, and it is recorded that at Port Saint Mary, near Cadiz, several thousand barrels of choice Spanish snuff were captured. At Vigo on the homeward voyage more native snuff was obtained, and found its way to England, instead of the Spanish market, as it was originally intended. The snuff was sold at the chief English ports for the benefit of the officers and men. In not a few instances waggon-loads were disposed of at fourpence per pound. It was named Vigo snuff, and the popularity of the ware, its cheapness, and novelty were the means of its coming into general use. In no part of the world did it become and remain more popular than in North Britain. A volume published in London in 1702, ent.i.tled "A Short Account of Scotland," without the author's name, but apparently by a military officer, contains some interesting information on the social life of the people. We gather from this work that the chief stimulant of the Scotch at this period was snuff. "They are fond of tobacco," it is stated, "but more from the sneesh-box [snuff-box] than the pipe. And they made it so necessary that I have heard some of them say that, should their bread come in compet.i.tion with it, they would rather fast than their sneesh should be taken away. Yet mostly it consists of the coa.r.s.est tobacco, dried by the fire, and pounded in a little engine after the form of a tap, which they carry in their pockets, and is both a mill to grind and a box to keep it in." At social gatherings the snuff-mull was constantly pa.s.sed round, and we are told that each guest left traces of its use on the table, on his knees, the folds of his dress, and on the floor. The preacher's voice was impaired with excessive indulgence in snuff.

Long before the English visitor had written his book on Scotland, attempts had been made to prohibit snuff-taking in church. At the Kirk Session of St. Cuthbert's, held on June 18, 1640, it was decided that every snuff-taker in church be amerced in "twenty shillings for everie falt."

Under date of April 11, 1641, it is stated in the Kirk Session records of Soulton as follows:--"Statute with consent of the ministers and elders, that every one that takes snuff in tyme of Divine Service shall pay 6s.

8d., and give one public confession of his fault." At Dunfermline, the Kirk Session had this matter under consideration, and the bellman was directed "to tak notice of those who tak the sneising tobacco in tyme of Divine Service, and to inform concerning them." A writer in a popular periodical, in a chapter on "The Divine Weed," makes a mistake, we think, presuming people smoked in church in bygone days. "At one period in the history of tobacco," says the contributor, "smoking was so common that it was actually practised in church." Previous to the visit of James the First to the University of Cambridge, in 1615, the Vice-Chancellor issued a notice to the students, which enjoined that "Noe graduate, scholler, or student of this Universitie presume to take tobacco in Saint Marie's Church, uppon payne of finall expellinge the Universitie." The taking of tobacco doubtless means using it in the form of snuff and not smoking it in a pipe.

Later, and perhaps at the period under notice, a strong feeling prevailed against smoking in the public streets. In the records of the Methwold Manor, Norfolk, is an entry in the court books dated October 4, 1659, as follows:--"Wee agree that any person that is taken smookeing tobacco in the street, forfeit one shilling for every time so taken, and it shall be put to the uses aforesaid (that is to the use of the towne). We present Nicholas Barber for smoking in the street, and do amerce him one shilling." At a parish meeting held at Winteringham, on January 6, 1685, it was resolved:--"None shall smoke tobacco in the streets upon paine of two shillings for every default." Schoolmasters were forbidden to smoke.