Then there was the white bull which the tenants of the monks of Bury St Edmunds were bound by their leases to provide, that childless women might present it to the shrine of the martyred king of East Anglia; there was the fine called "thistletake," which the owner of beasts crossing the common, and snatching at the "symbol dear," must pay to the lord of the Manor of Halton; there are the "three clove-gillieflowers" which the tenants of Hame in Surrey shall render at the King's coronation; there are all sorts of minute details as to house-bote and fire-bote, and common of piscary and turbary. One more custom and we have done. In the time of Richard the Lion-heart, Randal Blundeville, Earl of Chester, was on one occasion sore pressed by the Flintshire Welsh. He summoned to his aid his constable of Cheshire, one Roger Lacy, "for his fierceness surnamed Hell." It was fair-time at Chester, and Roger, putting himself at the head of the motley crowd marched off to his relief. The Welsh heard, saw, and bolted, and the grateful earl there and then promulgated a charter granting to Roger and his heirs for ever, "power over all fiddlers, lechers, light ladies (the charter has a briefer and stronger term), and cobblers in Chester." Under Henry VII. we find the then grantee exacting from the minstrels (_inter alia_) "four flagons of wine and a lance," whilst each of the aforesaid ladies must pay fourpence on the feast of St John the Baptist. Under Elizabeth, various acts were aimed at rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, but always with a saving provision as to this Chester jurisdiction, and in later times the Vagrant Act (17 George II., cap. 5) had a like reservation. DEODANDS At one time or other you have looked, one supposes, into that huge collection of curiosities and horrors known as the State Trials. You may possibly have noted the form of indictment in the murder cases; and if so, one odd detail must have impressed you. Having set forth the weapon used by the murderer, the document invariably goes on to estimate its money value: for, having been instrumental in taking human life, it was forfeit to the Crown, and it or its price had to be duly accounted for. It was called a Deodand, but the name was applied to many things besides arms used with malice aforethought. Thus, a man died by misadventure: then was the material cause active or passive? For instance, his end might come because a tree fell on him, or because he fell from a tree, in either case the wood was a deodand, and so forfeited. The name is from _Deo dandum_--a thing that must be offered to God, and this because in early mediæval times the Church or the poor had the ultimate benefit.