_Riding stang_, a custom that will be observed on hereafter, prevails in some parts of England on new year’s day to the present hour. The “stang” is a cowl-staff; the cowl is a water-vessel, borne by two persons on the cowl-staff, which is a stout pole whereon the vessel hangs. “Where’s the cowl-staff?” cries Ford’s wife, when she purposes to get Falstaff into a large buck-basket, with two handles; the cowl-staff, or “stang,” is produced, and, being passed through the handles, the fat knight is borne off by two of Ford’s men. A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1791, says, that in Westmoreland and Cumberland, on the 1st of January, multitudes assemble early in the morning with baskets and “stangs,” and whoever does not join them, whether inhabitant or stranger, is immediately mounted across the “stang,” and carried, shoulder height, to the next public-house, where sixpence liberates the prisoner. Women are seized in this way, and carried in baskets--the sex being privileged from riding “stang,” in compliment, perhaps, to the use of side-saddles. In the same part of the country, no one is allowed to work on new year’s day, however industrious. Mr. Ellis shows that it was a new year’s day custom in ancient Rome for tradesmen to work a little only, for luck’s sake, that they might have constant business all the year after. A communication in an English journal of January 1824 relates, that in Paris on new year’s day, which is called _le jour d’étrennes_, parents bestow portions on their children, brothers on their sisters, and husbands make presents to their wives. Carriages may be seen rolling through the streets with cargoes of _bon-bons_, _souvenirs_, and the variety of _et cæteras_ with which little children and grown-up children are bribed into good humour; and here and there pastrycooks are to be met with, carrying upon boards enormous temples, pagodas, churches, and playhouses, made of fine flour and sugar, and the embellishments which render French pastry so inviting. But there is one street in Paris to which a new year’s day is a whole year’s fortune--this is the _Rue des Lombards_, where the wholesale confectioners reside; for in Paris every trade and profession has its peculiar quarter. For several days preceding the 1st of January, this street is completely blocked up by carts and waggons laden with cases of sweetmeats for the provinces. These are of every form and description which the most singular fancy could imagine; bunches of carrots, green peas, boots and shoes, lobsters and crabs, hats, books, musical instruments, gridirons, frying-pans, and saucepans; all made of sugar, and coloured to imitate reality, and all made with a hollow within to hold the _bon-bons_. The most prevailing device is what is called a _cornet_, that is, a little cone ornamented in different ways with a bag to draw over the large end, and close it up. In these things, the prices of which vary from one franc (tenpence)