Some years ago, when the vessels engaged in the Greenland whale-fishery
left Whitby, in Yorkshire, I observed the wives and friends of the
sailors to throw old shoes at the ships as they passed the pier-head.
Query, What is the origin of this practice?

[Hebrew: T.A.]

_Roasting Mice for Hooping-cough_ is also very common in Norfolk; but I
am sorry to say that a more cruel superstitious practice is sometimes
inflicted on the little animal; for it is not many years since I
accidentally entered the kitchen in time to save a poor little mouse
from being hung up by the tail and roasted alive, as the means of
expelling the others of its race from the house. I trust that this
barbarous practice will soon be forgotten.

R.G.P.M.

_The Story of Mr. Fox._--Your correspondent F.L., who has related the
story of Sir Richard, surnamed Bloody, Baker, is, doubtless, aware of a
similar tale with which Mr. Blakeway furnished my late friend James
Boswell, and which the latter observed "is perhaps one of the most happy
illustrations of Shakspeare that has appeared."--(Malone's _Shakspeare_,
vol. vii. pp. 20. 163.)

The two narratives of Bloody Baker and Mr. Fox are substantially the
same. Variations will naturally creep in when a story is related by word
of mouth; for instance, the admonition over the chamber in Mr. Fox's
house--

"Be bold, be bold! but not too bold