who beats his wife. Is this a general custom?--and if so, what is its
origin and meaning?

B.


_Curious Custom_.--The custom spoken of by "PWCCA" (No. 11 p. 173.) was
also commonly practised in one or two places in Lancashire some ten or
twelve years back, but is now, I believe, obsolete. The horse was played
in a similar way, but the performer was then called "Old Balls." It is
no doubt a vestige of the old "hobby-horse,"--as the Norwich "Snap," who
kept his place in the procession of the mayor of that good city till the
days of municipal reform, was the last representative of his companion
the dragon.

J.T.

[Nathan also informs us "that it is very common in the West Riding of
Yorkshire, where a ram's head often takes the place of the horse's
skull. Has it not an obvious connection with the 'hobby-horse' of the
middle ages, and such mock pageants as the one described in Scott's
_Abbot_, vol. i. chap. 14.; the whole being a remnant of the Saturnalia
of the ancients?"]

* * * * *

QUERIES.

WHITE HART INN, SCOLE.