There is a popular simile—an awkward one in this connexion—founded on the dryness of a chip. This has almost deterred us from our intention of bundling a few chips together now and then. But, reflection on the natural lightness of the article has re-assured us; and we here present a few to our readers,—and shall continue to do so from time to time. DESTRUCTION OF PARISH REGISTERS. As the poorest man cannot foresee to what inheritance he may succeed, through the instrumentality of Parochial Registers, so in their preservation every member of the community is more or less interested; but the Parish Register returns of 1833 show that a general feeling seemed to exist in favour of their destruction. Scarcely one of them pronounced the Registers in a satisfactory state. The following sentences abound in the Blue Book: “leaves cut out,” “torn out,” “injured by damp,” “mutilated,” “in fragments,” “destroyed by fire,” “much torn,” “illegible,” “tattered,” “imperfect,” “early registers lost.” Thanks to the General Registry Act of William the Fourth, all such records made since 1835 are now properly cared for; but those prior to that date are still in parochial keeping, to be torn, lost, burnt, interpolated, stolen, defaced, or rendered illegible at the good pleasure of every wilful or heedless individual of a destructive organisation. Some time ago Mr. Walbran, of Ripon, found part of a Parish Register among a quantity of wastepaper in a cheesemonger’s shop. The same gentleman has rescued the small but very interesting register of the chapelry of Denton, in the county of Durham, from the fate which once had nearly befallen it, by causing several literatim copies to be printed and deposited in public libraries. Among other instances of negligent custody, Mr. Downing Bruce, the barrister, relates, in a recently published pamphlet, that the Registers of South Otterington, containing several entries of the great families of Talbot, Herbert, and Fauconberg, were formerly kept in the cottage of the parish-clerk, who used all those preceding the eighteenth century for waste paper; a considerable portion having been taken to “singe a goose!”