th him and put them under
the bench. These were collected by the cobbler-clerk, carried home in a
sack, and brought back on the following Sunday neatly and carefully
soled and heeled. It would seem strange now if on entering a church our
eyes should light upon a row of farmers' dirty old boots and the
freshly-mended evidences of the clerk's skill. All this took place in
the fifties. In the sixties a new vicar came. The old organ wheezed its
last phlegmatic tune; it was replaced by a modern instrument with six
stops, and a player who did his best, but occasioned not a little
laughter on account of his numerous breakdowns. The old high pews have
disappeared, nice open benches erected, the floor relaid, a good choir
enlisted, and everything changed for the better.

The poor old clerk must have been almost overwhelmed by his numerous
duties, and was often much embarrassed and exasperated by the old
squire, Mr. C.B. Lawton, who was somewhat whimsical in his ways. This
gentleman used to enter the church by his own private door, and go to
his large, square, high-panelled family pew, and when the vicar gave out
the hymn, he used often to shout out, "Here, hold on! I don't like that
one; let's have hymn Number 25," or some such effort of psalmody. This
request, or command, used to upset the organ arrangement, and the poor
old clerk had to rummage among his barrels to get a suitable tune, and
the operation, even if successful, took at least ten minutes, during
which time a large amount of squeaking and the sounds of the writhing of
woodwork and snapping of sundry catches were heard in the church. But
the congregation was accustomed to the performance and thought little
of it. (John Smallwood, 2 Mount Pleasant, Strangeways, Manchester.)

Caistor Church, Lincolnshire, famous for the curious old ceremony of the
gad-whip, was also celebrated for its clerk, old Joshua Foster, who was
officiating there in 1884 at the time of the advent of a new vicar.
Trinity Sunday was the first Sunday of the new clergyman, who sorely
puzzled the clerk by reading the Athanasian Creed. The old man peered
down into the vicar's family pew from his desk, casting a despairing
glance at the wife of the vicar, who handed him a Prayer Book with the
place found, so that he could make the responses. He was very economical
in the use of handkerchiefs, and used the small pieces of paper on which
the numbers of the metrical psalm were written. In vain did the wife