ut in the pocket. The first money
received on the day is called taking Handsell, and some spit on it and
turn it to get good luck. When anything is used for the first time it is
handselled.

BOOT.

This was a kind of punishment for such boys as have carelessly neglected
their duty in the harvest, or treated their labour with negligence
instead of attention, as letting their cattle get pounded or
overthrowing their loads, etc. A long form is placed in the kitchen upon
which the boys who have worked well sit, as a terror and disgrace to the
rest in a bent posture, with their hands laid on each others backs
forming a hedge for the "boys," as the truant boys are called to pass
over; while a strong chap stands on each side with a boot-legging
strongly strapping them as they scuffle over the bridge, which is done
as fast as their ingenuity can carry them. _Clare's_ Village Minstrel.

Meeting eyebrows are lucky, and those having them are said to have
great luck with stock.

CUTTING NAILS.

Cut your nails on a Monday, cut for a gift.
Cut your nails on a Tuesday, cut them for thrift.
Cut your nails on a Wednesday, cut them for news.
Cut your nails on a Thursday, cut for a new pair of shoes.
Cut your nails on a Friday, cut them for sorrow,
Cut your nails on a Saturday, see your sweetheart to-morrow.
Cut them on Sunday, cut them for evil.
Cut them all the week round, and you'll go to the devil.

Better that child had ne'er been born,
Who cuts its nails on a Sunday morn.

Of a Friday's pare,
No good will come near.

If you cut your nails on Monday morning before breakfast, and without
thinking of a fox's tail, you will have a gift before the week is out.
When told this, I asked, Why not a fox's brush? "Oh, no!" was the reply,
"you may think of the brush but not the tail."

White specks on the nails are called gifts, and the rhyme says:--

A gift on the finger is sure to linger,
A gift on the thumb, is sure to come.

In this district many mothers will not allow their babie's nails to be
cut before they are a year old, but they bite the edges off. If the
nails are cut the children grow up thieves.

A new born babe, before being taken out of the house, should be carried
up some stairs, but if it is born in a room at the top of the house, the
nurse lifts it up and gets on a chair, and puts the child on the top of
something high, so that it may rise in the world.