OCR Text |
Show j A. Co ml nil Custom. Of the more modern and wholly quaint and innocent customs of Cornwall a few pleasant illustrations may be cited- Tho tish wives of ancient St. Ives are an incorrigible in-corrigible lot. Should you visit the town at the height of pilchard fishing, and enter en-ter the dark cellars where hundreds of women and girls are engaged iu "bulking," "bulk-ing," or salting, the fish, scores of grinning grin-ning Amazons will rush at you, and the fleetest one will daub yonr shoes generously gener-ously with the odorous fish oil which has drained from the piles of curing fish. This ia called "wiping the shoe," and if you do not respond with tribute of at least a half crown for luck of the "fair maids th;ifc feed and clothe the poor" that is, the piluhard fishes your subsequent subse-quent "hustling" by these savory wenches will certainty cost you a new suit of clothing. The same custom, save that the daubing is done with "miner'a clay," prevails within the mines, whore the stranger is expected to pay something some-thing for his initiation into their mysteries. mys-teries. Edgur L. Wulreman in New York Sun. |