out
out the "Amens." The Rector of Buxted, Sussex (1666 A.D.), records with
a sigh of relief the death of his old clerk, "whose melody warbled forth
as if he had been thumped on the back with a stone."

Sometimes royal visits to the neighbourhood are recorded, even a royal
hunt, as when James I. hunted the hare at Fordham, Cambridgeshire. The
register of Wolverton gives "a license for eating flesh on prohibited
days granted to Sir Tho. Temple, on paying 13s. 4d." Storms,
earthquakes, and floods are described; and records of certificates
granted to persons to go before the king to be touched for the disease
called the king's evil.

The Civil War is frequently mentioned, and also caused the omission of
many entries. At Tarporley, Cheshire, there is a break from 1643 to
1648, for which the rector thus accounts:--

"This intermission hapned by reason of the great wars obliterating
memorials, wasting fortunes, and slaughtering persons of all sorts."

Parish registers have fared ill and suffered much from the gross
carelessness of their custodians. We read of the early books of Christ
Church, Hants, being converted into kettle-holders by the curate's wife.
Many have been sold as waste paper, pages ruthlessly cut out, and
village schoolbooks covered with the leaves of old registers. The
historian of Leicestershire writes of the register of Scraptoft:--

"It has not been a plaything for young pointers--it has not occupied a
bacon scratch, or a bread and cheese cupboard--it has not been scribbled
on within and without; but it has been treasured ever since 1538, to the
honour of a succession of worthy clergymen."--_O si sic omnes_!

The churchwardens' account books are even of greater value to the
student of history than the registers, priceless as the latter are
for genealogical purposes. The Bishop of Oxford states that "in the
old account books and minute books of the churchwardens in town and
country we possess a very large but very perishable and rapidly
perishing treasury of information on matters the very remembrance
of which is passing away, although their practical bearing on the
development of the system of local government is indisputable, and
is occasionally brought conspicuously before the eye of the people
by quaint survivals.... It is well that such materials for the
illustration of this economic history as have real value should be
preserved in print; and that the customs which they illustrate should
be rec