_Straw Necklaces_ (Vol. ii., p. 511.).--Having only lately read the "NOTES AND QUERIES" (in fact, this being the first number subscribed for), I do not know the previous allusion. It makes me mention a curious custom at Carlisle, of the {230} servants who wish to be hired going into the marketplace of Carlisle, or as they call it "Carel," with a straw in their mouths. It is fast passing away, and _now_, instead of keeping the straw constantly in the mouth, they merely put it in a few seconds if they see any one looking at them. Anderson, in his _Cumberland Ballads_, alludes to the custom:-- "At Carel I stuid wi' a strae i' my mouth, The weyves com roun me in clusters: 'What weage dus te ax, canny lad?' says yen." H. W. D. _Library of the Church of Westminster_ (Vol. iii., p. 152.).--The statement here quoted from the _Delices de la Grande Bretagne_ is scarcely likely to be correct. We all know how prone foreigners are to misapprehension, and therefore, how unsafe it is to trust to their observations. In this case, may not the description of the _Bibliotheque Publique_, which was open night and morning, during the sittings of the courts of justice, have originated merely from the rows of booksellers' stalls in Westminster-hall? J. G. N. _The Ten Commandments_ (Vol. iii., p. 166.).--Waterland (vol. vi. p. 242., 2nd edition, Oxford, 1843) gives a copy of the Decalogue taken from an old MS. In this the first two commandments are embodied in one. Leighton, in his _Exposition of the Ten Commandments_, when speaking on the point of the manner of dividing them, refers in a vague manner to Josephus and Philo. R. V. _Sitting crosslegged to avert Evil_ (Vol. ii.,p. 407.).--Browne says:-- "To set crosselegg'd, or with our fingers pectinated or shut together, is accounted bad, and friends will perswade us from it. The same conceit religiously possessed the ancients, as is observable from Pliny: 'Poplites alternis genibus imponere nefas olim;' and also from Athenaeus, that it was an old veneficious practice."--_Vulg. Err._, lib. v. cap. xxi. Sec. 9. ACHE. _George Steevens_ (Vol. iii., p. 119.).--A. Z. wishes to know whether a memoir of George Steevens, the Shakspearian commentator, was ever published, and what has become of the manuscripts. I believe the late Sir James Allen Park wrote his life, but whether for public or private circulation I cannot tell. The late George Steevens had a relative, a Mrs. Collinson, and daughters who lived with him at Hampstead, and with him when he died, in Jan. 1800. Miss Collinson married a Mr. Pyecroft, whose death, I think, is in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for this month: perhaps the Pyecroft family may give information respecting the manuscripts.