The curious tenacity of the manorial custom is well shown in the case of Pomber in Hampshire: the Annual Court, in accordance with immemorial usage, must be held in the open air, but the inconvenience of this was obviated by an immediate adjournment of the proceedings to the nearest tavern. The records were not kept on parchment, but "on a piece of wood called a tally, about three feet long and an inch and a half square, furnished every day by the steward." In time these strange muniments became worm-eaten and illegible; and, as occupying much needed room, were thrown to the flames by the dozen. (It will be remembered that the old Houses of Parliament were set on fire and destroyed on the burning of the exchequer tallies, October 1834.) Some of the survivors were produced as evidence in a case heard at Winchester, which fact provoked "a counsellor on the opposite side of the question" to dub it "a wooden cause." The obvious retort--that his was a wooden joke--seems lacking; but possibly this gem of legal humour emanated from the Bench: how often one has seen its like! Still stranger was the Lawless Court of the Honour of Raleigh: it was held in the darkness of cockcrow; the steward and the suitors (i.e., those bound to attend the Court) mumbled their words in scarce audible fashion; candles, pens, ink, were all forbidden; for, as the authorities vaguely put it, "they supply that office with a coal." To ensure a punctual attendance, the suitor "forfeits to his lord double his rent every hour he is absent." The learned Camden affirms it was all to punish the aboriginal tenants for a conspiracy hatched in the darkness of the night; again he sees in it a remnant of an old Teutonic custom; and in the end you suspect that he knows as little as yourself.