and baptisms, burials, and marriages were not entered as they ought to
have been. In one of my own register books an indignant parson writes
in the year 1768: "There does not appear any one entry of a Baptism,
Marriage, or Burial in the old Register for nine successive years,
viz. from the year 1732 till the year 1741, when this Register
commences." The fact was that the old parchment book beginning A.D.
1553 was quite full and crowded with names, and the rector never
troubled to provide himself with a new one. Fortunately this sad
business took place long before our present septuagenarians were born,
or there would be much confusion and uncertainty with regard to
old-age pensions.

The disastrous period of the Civil War and the Commonwealth caused
great confusion and many defects in the registers. Very often the
rector was turned out of his parish; the intruding minister, often an
ignorant mechanic, cared naught for registers. Registrars were
appointed in each parish who could scarcely sign their names, much
less enter a baptism. Hence we find very frequent gaps in the books
from 1643 to 1660. At Tarporley, Cheshire, there is a break from 1643
to 1648, upon which a sorrowful vicar remarks:--

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

The Parliamentary soldiers amused themselves by tearing out the leaves
in the registers for the years 1604 to the end of 1616 in the parish
of Wimpole, Cambridgeshire.

There is a curious note in the register of Tunstall, Kent. There seems