of births is altogether omitted from its provisions. By a stroke of
the wildest wit the penalty of transportation for fourteen years,
for making a false entry, "is to be divided equally between the
informer and the poor of the parish." A more casual Act has rarely
been drafted.

Without entering into the modern history of parish registers, we may
borrow a few of the ancient curiosities to be found therein, the
blunders and the waggeries of forgotten priests, and curates, and
parish clerks. In quite recent times (1832) it was thought worth
while to record that Charity Morrell at her wedding had signed her
name in the register with her right foot, and that the ring had been
placed on the fourth toe of her left foot; for poor Charity was born
without arms. Sometimes the time of a birth was recorded with much
minuteness, that the astrologers might draw a more accurate
horoscope. Unlucky children, with no acknowledged fathers, were
entered in a variety of odd ways. In Lambeth (1685), George
Speedwell is put down as "a merry begot;" Anne Twine is "filia
uniuscujusque." At Croydon, a certain William is "terraefilius"
(1582), an autochthonous infant. Among the queer names of
foundlings are "Nameless," "Godsend," "Subpoena," and "Moyses and
Aaron, two children found," not in the bulrushes, but "in the
street."

The rule was to give the foundling for surname the name of the
parish, and from the Temple Church came no fewer than one hundred
and four foundlings named "Temple," between 1728 and 1755. These
Temples are the plebeian gens of the patrician house which claims
descent from Godiva. The use of surnames as Christian names is
later than the Reformation, and is the result of a reaction against