The local authorities are anxious to keep up the ancient custom enjoined upon them by an old charter, but they often experience great difficulty in obtaining the old-time pieces of money. Sometimes as much as £15 has been paid for one of the scarce coins. "Upon the resignation or the death of a judge who has travelled the northern circuit, we are told the corporation at once offer to purchase from his representative the 'dagger-money' received on his visits to Newcastle, in order to use it on future occasions." It was customary, in the olden time, for the mayor and other members of the Banbury Corporation to repair to Oxford during the assizes and visit the judge at his lodgings, and the mayor, with all the graces of speech at his command, ask "my lord" to accept a present of the celebrated Banbury cakes, wine, some long clay pipes, and a pound of tobacco. The judge accepted these with gratitude, or, at all events, in gracious terms expressed his thanks for their kindness. The Corporation of Ludlow used to offer hospitality to the judges. The representatives of the town met the train in which the judges travelled from Shrewsbury to Hereford, and offered to them cake and wine, the former on an ancient silver salver, and the latter in a loving-cup wreathed with flowers. Mr. Justice Hill was the cause of the custom coming to a conclusion in 1858. He was travelling the circuit, and he communicated with the mayor saying, "owing to the delay occasioned, Her Majesty's judges would not stop at Ludlow to receive the wonted hospitality." We are told the mayor and corporation were offended, and did not offer to renew the ancient courtesy. The making of a "sutor of Selkirk" is attended with some ceremony. "It was formerly the practice of the burgh corporation of Selkirk," says Dr. Charles Rogers, the social historian of Scotland, "to provide a collation or _dejeûner_ on the invitation of a burgess. The rite of initiation consisted in the newly-accepted brother passing through the mouth a bunch of bristles which had previously been mouthed by all the members of the board. This practice was termed 'licking the birse:' it took its origin at a period when shoemaking was the staple trade of the place, the birse being the emblem of the craft. When Sir Walter Scott was made a burgess or 'sutor of Selkirk,' he took precaution before mouthing the beslabbered brush to wash it in his wine, but the act of rebellion was punished by his being compelled to drink the polluted liquor." In 1819, Prince Leopold was created "a sutor of Selkirk," but the ceremony was modified to meet his more refined tastes, and the old style has not been resumed. Mr. Andrew Lang, a distinguished native of the town, has had the honour conferred upon him of being made a sutor. The Mayor of Altrincham, Cheshire, in bygone times was, if we are to put any faith in proverbial lore, a person of humble position, and on this account the "honour" was ridiculed. An old rhyme says--