e are reckoned better than a tooth taken from the
mouth of a corpse, which is often enveloped in a little bag, and hung
round the neck. A double nut is also sometimes worn in the pocket for
the same purpose.

_Hooping-cough._--A small quantity of hair is taken frown the nape of
the child's neck, rolled up in a piece of meat, and given to a dog, in
the firm belief that the disease thereby becomes transferred to the
animal. A friend informs me that the same charm is well known in
Gloucestershire.

_Rheumatism._--The right forefoot of a hare, worn constantly in the
pocket, is considered a fine amulet against the "rheumatiz."

_West._--In order to be rid of the painful tumour on the eyelid,
provincially known as the _west_ or _sty_, it is customary for the
sufferer, on the first night of the new moon, to procure the tail of a
black cat, and after pulling from it one hair, rub the tip _nine_ times
over the pustule. As this has a very cabalistic look, and is moreover
frequently attended with sundry severe scratches, a gold ring is found
to be a much more harmless substitute; and as it is said to be equally
beneficial with the former, it is now more commonly used. This
superstition is alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher, _Mad Lovers_, v.
4.:--

"---- I have a _sty_ here, Chilax.

_Chi._ I have no gold to cure it, not a penny."

_Thorn._--The following word charm is used to prevent a thorn from
festering:--

"Our Saviour was of a virgin born,
His head was crowned with a crown of thorn;
It never canker'd nor fester'd at all,
And I hope in Christ Jesus this never shaull [shall]."

This will remind the reader of the one given by Pepys, vol. ii. p. 415.

T. S.

* * * * *

BRASICHELLEN AND SERPILIUS--EXPURGATORY INDEX.

I have a note, and should be glad to put a query, on the subject of a
small octavo volume, of which the title is, "Indicis Librorum
Expurgandorum, in studiosorum gratiam confecti, tomus primus; in quo
quinquaginta auctorum libri prae caeteris desiderati emendantur. Per Fr.
Io. Mariam Brasichellensem, sacri Palatii Apostolici Magistrum, in unum
corpus redactus, et publicae commoditati editus. Superiorum permissu,
Romae, 1607." Speaking of this index, Mendham says:--

"We now advance to perhaps the most extraordinary and scarcest
of all this class of publications. It is the first, and last,
and incomplete Expurgatory Index, which R