"Paid for a small bell for the _watche_ iiij's "Paid to the smith for Iron worke to it xx'd "Paid for a waight for the Clocke wayinge 36'lb and for a ringe of Iron v's." Still, however, the hour-glass was used at the pulpit-desk, to determine the length the parson should go in his discourse; and xij'd for a new hour-glass frequently occurs. * * * * * QUERIES. COLLEGE SALTING. Mr. Editor.--If your very valuable work had existed in October, 1847, when I published in the _British Magazine_ a part of Archibishop Whitgift's accounts relative to his pupils while he was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, I should certainly have applied to you for assistance. In several of the accounts there is a charge for the pupil's "salting;" and after consulting gentlemen more accurately informed with regard to the customs of the university than myself, I was obliged to append a note to the word, when it occurred for the first time in the account of Lord Edward Zouch, in which I said, "I must confess my inability to explain this word; and do not know whether it may be worth while to state that, on my mentioning it to a gentleman, once a fellow-commoner of the college, he told me, that when, as a freshman, he was getting his gown from the maker, he made some remark on the long strips of sleeve by which such gowns are distinguished, and was told that they were called 'salt-bags,' but he could not learn why; and an Oxford friend tells me, that going to the buttery to drink salt and water was part of the form of his admission.... This nobleman's (i.e. Lord Edward Zouch's) amounted to 4s., and that of the Earl of Cumberland to 3s. 4d., while in other cases it was as low as 8d." To this I added the suggestion that it was probably some fee, or expense, which varied according to the rank of the parties. It afterwards occurred to me that this "salting" was, perhaps, some entertainment given by the new-comer, from and after which he ceased to be "fresh;" and that while we seem to have lost the "salting" both really and nominally, we retain the word to which it has reference. Be this as it may, my attention has just now been recalled to the question by my accidentally meeting with one of Owen's epigrams, which shows that in his time there was some sort of salting at Oxford, and also of peppering at Winchester. As I doubt not that you have readers well acquainted with the customs of both these seats of learning, perhaps some may be good enough to afford information. Owen was at Oxford not many years after Whitgift had been Master of Trinity at Cambridge, if (as Wood states) he took his bachelor's degree in 1590. The epigram is as follows:-- "Oxoniæ salsus (juvenis tum) more vetusto; Wintoniæque (puer tum) piperatus eram. Si quid inest nostro piperisve salisve libello, Oxoniense sal est, Wintoniense piper."