On the birth of a child notice is usually sent to the nearest relations, and as soon as the mother is sufficiently recovered she receives the visits and congratulations of her friends. It is customary to offer cake and wine to the visitors on these occasions. The wine must on no account be refused, but the health of the child must be duly drunk, and the glass drained, for it is considered extremely unlucky to leave a drop behind. The christening feast still retains the ancient name of “_Les Aubailles_” from the white garment or alb--in French “aube”--with which, in the early church, the recipients of baptism were solemnly invested. It is customary for the sponsors to make a present to the child, which usually takes the form of silver spoons, or a drinking cup. Before the re-establishment of Episcopacy at the Restoration there appears to have been only one sponsor of each sex. Of course the rubric which orders that every boy shall have two godfathers, and every girl two godmothers, is now complied with, but the second is invariably styled by the people the “little” godfather or godmother, and is often a child or very young person evidently only put in to comply with the requirements of the church. The excess of feasting at baptisms and churchings as well as at marriages and funerals seems to have reached to such an extent in the early part of the seventeenth century as to call for repressive measures on the part of the legislature, at that time deeply imbued with a puritanical spirit, and sumptuary laws of a very stringent nature were promulgated restricting the invitations on these occasions to the nearest relations, and prohibiting entirely all dancing, and even almsgiving. After baptism the child is sent round to its nearest relatives, and the old women say that a present of some sort, preferably an egg, should be placed in the infant’s hands, while visitors to the child are always expected to put some money in the infant’s hand for luck, and as a token that it shall never want, the value of the gift being of little moment. It is thought very unlucky to measure or weigh a child, such a proceeding being sure to stop its growth; and it is also supposed to be very unlucky to cover up a baby’s face when taking it to the church to be christened, until the ceremony is over. It is considered peculiarly unlucky for three children to be presented at the font at the same time for baptism, as it is firmly believed that one of the three is sure to die within the year.[41]--_Communicated by the Rev. C. D. P. Robinson, Rector of St. Martin’s._ [41] EDITOR’S NOTE.--This superstition still continues, and was told me in 1896 by Mrs. Le Patourel and others. The doomed baby is supposed to be the one christened _second_, or the middle one, and you still hear women say when their child has been christened with two others, “Oh, but mine was an _end_ one.” Betrothals and Weddings.