Old English gentlemen were anciently very much afraid of theft and peculation; they believed that "Treste lokes maketh trewe hewen,"--or, to change their maxim into current English, they believed that "firm locks made faithful servants." The barns were to be well closed after August, and no servant was to open them until threshing-time, without the special direction of the landlord or the steward. The strictest accounts were kept. Every person, in any situation of the slightest trust or responsibility, was required to render an account of every penny and every article passing through his hands, to the receiver, or bailiff, whose accounts were revised once a year by auditors, who went round from manor to manor. FOOTNOTES: [57] The staple of this paper is selected and condensed from a series of learned articles, entitled "The Rights, Disabilities, and Usages of the Ancient English Peasantry;" in the _Law Magazine and Law Review_, published by Messrs. Butterworth. Some of the ancient law terms have been omitted, in order to better adapt this abstract for popular reading. [58] In our day, the beadle is most familiar to us as an officer of the church. Formerly, one of his duties was a strange one. We read of the beadle, in a church, going round the edifice during service, carrying a long staff, at one end of which was a fox's brush, and at the other a knob: with the former, he gently tickled the faces of the female sleepers, while on the heads of their male compeers he bestowed with the knob a terrible rap. At Acton church, in Cheshire, some five and twenty years ago, one of the churchwardens, or the apparitor, used to go round the church during service, with a long wand in his hand; and if any of the congregation were asleep, they were instantly awoke by a tap on the head. In the church at Dunchurch, a similar custom existed: a person, having a stout wand, shaped like a hay-fork at the end, stept stealthily up and down the naves and aisles, and whenever he saw an individual asleep, he touched him so effectually, that the spell was broken; this being sometimes done by fitting the fork to the nape of the neck. OLDEN HOUSE-MARKS. The means by which property has been identified, and denoted by some distinctive mark, at various periods, present us with some curious customs.