he numerous bequests to
dog-whippers show the importance of the office.

Nor were dogs the only creatures who were accustomed to receive
chastisement in church. The clerk was usually armed with a cane or rod,
and woe betide the luckless child who talked or misbehaved himself
during service. Frequently during the course of a long sermon the sound
of a cane (the Tottenham clerk had a split cane which made no little
noise when used vigorously) striking a boy's back was heard and startled
a sleepy congregation. It was all quite usual. No one objected, or
thought anything about it, and the sermon proceeded as if nothing had
happened. Paul Wootton, clerk at Bromham, Wilts, seventy years ago
performed various duties during the service, taking his part in the
gallery among the performers as bass, flute serpent, an instrument
unknown now, etc., pronouncing his Amen _ore rotundo_ and during the
sermon armed with a long stick sitting among the children to preserve
order. If any one of the small creatures felt that _opere in longo fas
est obrepere somnum_, the long stick fell with unerring whack upon the
urchin's head. When Mr. Stracey Clitherow went to his first curacy at
Skeyton, Norfolk, in 1845, he found the clerk sweeping the whole chancel
clear of snow which had fallen through the roof. The font was of wood
painted orange and red. The singers sat within the altar rails with a
desk for their books inside the rails. There was a famous old clerk,
named Bird, who died only a year or two ago, aged ninety, and, as Mr.
Clitherow informed Bishop Stanley, was the best man in the parish, and
was well worthy of that character.

Even in London churches unfortunate events happened, and somnolent
clerks were not confined to the country. A correspondent remembers that
in 1860, when St. Martin's-in-the-Fields was closed for the purpose of
redecorating, his family migrated to St. Matthew's Chapel, Spring
Gardens (recently demolished), where one hot Sunday evening one of the
curates of St. Martin's was preaching, and in the course of his sermon
said that it was the duty of the laity to pray that God would "endue His
ministers with righteousness." The clerk was at the moment sound asleep,
but suddenly aroused by the familiar words, which acted like a bugle
call to a slumbering soldier, he at once slid down on the hassock at his
feet and uttered the response "And make Thy chosen people joyful." My
informant remarks that the "chosen people" who