"I have heard the term 'fest' used generally as applying to sending out cattle to pasture, and so says Carr in his _Dialect of Craven_. I have also frequently heard it used in this manner: 'I have fest my lad out apprentice to so and so.' In my own neighbourhood, in the West Riding, it is a frequent practice for poor man who possesses a cow, but no pasture, to 'fest' her with some occupier of land at a certain sum by the week, or for some other term. So a gamekeeper is said 'to fest' his master's pointer, when he agrees with a farmer to keep it for a time. In these cases the boy, the cow, the pointer, 'are boarded from home.'" As to "statutes" or "sittings," the word "statutes" is explained in Blount's _Dictionary_ as follows: "It is also used in our vulgar discourse for the Petty Sessions which are yearly kept for the disposing of servants in service by the statute 5 Eliz. chap. iv." (§ 48.) See in the _Archaic and Provincial Dictionary_, "SITTINGS" and "STATUTE." In Holderness (I collect it from the Query of F. R. H.) the term "sittings" is used in the same sense as "statute" in the West Riding, and in many other parts of the kingdom. "Fest sittings" appear then to mean "the annual assemblage of servants who hire themselves to board from home." In many places the "statute" or "stattie" is connected with the fair. "Statute Fairs," my friend writes, "are held at Settle, Long Preston, and other places, which don't occur to me, in our district (Craven). At Settle servants wishing to hire stand with a small white wand in their hands, to show their object. In like manner horses, when taken to a fair, wear on their heads a white leather kind of bridle; and (to come nearer home) when a young lady has attained a certain age, and begins to look with anxious eye to future prospects, we say that she also has put on the white bridle." He adds: "I have myself had servants hired at Long Preston Statute Fair." Another friend writes to me: "Richmond Statties are very famous, every servant desirous of hiring having a peeled twig or stick. At Penrith they put a straw in their mouths. I remember a poor girl being killed by an infuriated cow at Penrith; and the poor thing had the straw in her mouth when dead." In the East Riding, Pocklington Statute is well known; and York has its Statute Fair. At these "statutes" or "statties" ("Stattie Fairs" and "Sittings," or Fest Sittings), servants "fest themselves," that is, hire themselves to board from home. Standing in the market-place to be hired will occur to any one who may take the trouble of reading these desultory observations. Excuse my adding irrelevantly the following use of the word "sitting." It is said that a young man is "sitting a young woman," when he is wooing or courting her. F. W. T. HISTOIRE DES SÉVÉRAMBES. (Vol. iii., pp. 4. 72. 147. 374.)