BULL CHARITY.

There is an ancient annual payment of 57. out of an estate at Biddenham, in the County of Bedford, which formerly belonged to the Family of BOTELER, and is now the Property of Lord Viscount HAMP

DEN.

This sum is regularly paid on St. Thomas's day to the Overseers of the Poor, and is applicable, by the terms of the original gift (of which, however, no written memorial is to be found) or by long-established usage, to the purchase of a Bull, which is killed, and the flesh thereof given away among the poor persons of the Parish.

For many years past, the annual fund being insufficient to purchase a Bull, the deficiency has been made good out of the rents of land purchased with a bequest of Mrs. BOTELER for the use of the poor.

It was proposed some years ago by the Vicar, that the 57. a year should be laid out in buying meat, but the poor insisted upon the customary purchase of a Bull

being continued, and the usage is accordingly kept up.R

CREMITT MONEY.

By an order of The Lord Treasurer of England, dated from Whitehall, the 24th of May, 1705, reciting that the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of York had, amongst other things, represented to The Lord Treasurer that there was an ancient Charity, called "Cremitt Money", being 417. 6s. 8d. per annum, which had been granted by Queen ELIZABETH, to be paid out of the Fee-farm rents arising to the Crown in the County of York, and City and County of the City of York, payable to and amongst Thirty-one such poor inhabitants of the City as the Mayor and Aldermen in their discretion thought most proper objects of the same, but that of late the Receiver had not only refused to pay it to the Mayor and Aldermen for the use of the poor, but had taken upon him to distribute the Charity as he thought fit, and to deny the continuance of it to several persons whose circumstances entitled * Rep. vi. p. 32.

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them to the same, and to pay part to others who were not proper objects of it,—It was ordered, that the Receiver should from time to time, for the future, pay over the said Cremitt Money to 31 such poor housekeepers or others of the City as should be nominated from time to time in Lists to be signed by the Lord Mayor and major part of the Aldermen, as Her Majesty's charity, every year,-And the sum of 417. 6s. 8d. is regularly paid once a year, in October, by The Receiver of the Crown Rents for the County of York, in sums of 17. 6s. 8d. to 31 poor persons of York, selected by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen from housekeepers in York not receiving alms or Parish allowance.

A fuller abstract than usual has been given of this ancient charity, in order to lead to a satisfactory explanation of it's name. It is, doubtless, either an abbreviation or a corruption, and what approaches the nearest to it is, the "Crementum Comitatus", which CowEL describes to be, “The improvement of the King's rents above the ancient Vicontiel Rents, for

which improvements the Sheriff answered under the title of Crementum Comitatus, or, Firma de Cremento Comitatus.”

HEAD-SILVER.

A Quit-rent of 5s., called " Head-Silver," is payable to The Marquis of EXETER out of the Town Lands of North Luffenham, in the County of Rutland.

Head-Pence, or Head-Silver, was an exaction made by the Sheriff of Northumberland, amounting to 407. or more, twice in seven years. It was received for an exemption from attendance at the Sheriff's torn; and thereupon the Lords of Manors held their Leet, where the Suitors, for their greater convenience, were permitted to attend and make what, in the Law books, is called their "Suit Royal." This exaction was totally suppressed by the Statute made in the 23d year of King HENRY the Sixth, cap. 7. The name, however, and also some memorials of this obsolete custom still remain on the Borders, and in the mountainous parts of the County.-HUTCHINSON.

ANCIENT APPELLATIONS.

MANY OLD WORDS Occurring in the Reports, descriptive of the Customs of Antiquity, or of Local application, I have thought it expedient to make a Collection of them, not with any pretence to a regular Glossary, but to afford amusement to those who may take pleasure in tracing the Etymology of names, several of which have long been considered to be obsolete.

AYTE, or EYGHT, a small Island in a river,

where Osiers grow, supposed by SKINNER, to be corrupted from Islet. This explanation is fully confirmed by a charity at Fulham, which is designated "an Island or twig-ait, situate in the river Thames." BALK, or BAWK, a bank or hill, a ridge of land which is either casually overslipped, or not turned up in ploughing, or designedly left untouched by the plough, for a boundary between lands, or some other use. Hence "to balk" is frequently used metaphorically for "to pass over, or to disappoint."