me with good characters, and
certainly twenty pounds is a very small allowance; but how will your
surprise be increased, when I tell you that their _full_ pay, when
watching, fighting and bleeding for their country at sea, is not equal to
that sum. An admiral's half-pay is scarcely equal, including the run of a
kitchen, to that of a French cook; a captain's but little better than a
valet's; and a lieutenant's certainly not equal to a London footman's; a
midshipman's nothing. But as I am a seaman, and faring with them, I can say
nothing. I will only apply some very old lines wrote at the end of some
former war:

"Our God and sailor we adore,
In time of danger, not before;
The danger past, both are alike requited,
God is forgotten, and the sailor slighted."

Your feelings do you great honour, and I only wish all others in the
kingdom were the same. However, if ever I should be placed in a situation
to be useful to such a deserving set of young men as our mids, nothing
shall be left undone which may be in the power of,

Dear Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
NELSON AND BRONTE.

Walton Churchey, Esq.,
Brecon, S. Wales.

* * * * *

FOLK LORE.

_Devonshire Superstitions._--Seeing that you sometimes insert extracts from
newspapers, I forward you a copy of a paragraph which appeared in _The
Times_ of March 7, 1854, and which is worth a corner in your folk-lore
columns:

"The following gross case of superstition, which occurred as late as
Sunday se'nnight, in one of the largest {345} market towns in the north
of Devon, is related by an eye-witness:--A young woman, living in the
neighbourhood of Holsworthy, having for some time past been subject to
periodical fits of illness, endeavoured to effect a cure by attendance
at the afternoon service at the parish church, accompanied by thirty
young men, her near neighbours. Service over, she sat in the porch of
the church, and each of the young men, as they passed out in
succession, dropped a penny into her lap; but the last, instead of a
penny, gave her half-a-crown, taking from her the twenty-nine pennies
which she had already received. With this half-crown in her hand, she
walked three times round the communion-table, and afterwards had it
made into a ring, by the wearing of which she believes she will recover
her health."