The demand of these New Year pirates seems in the olden time to have been for “candles,” perhaps a convenient medium of exchange. In our day it was frankly for cash. Not only the watchman, but every one who had during the year rendered the house any service, or might be expected to in the year to come, knocked, said “Happy New Year,” and received a silver mark or an “eight-skilling,” which was half a mark, as the case might be, with the thanks of the householder. The chimney-sweep was there, washed and cleaned for once,--on other days he made it a point to look “like his trade,”--and the official mourner, who alternately bade the town to weddings and funerals, or gave notice that the stork had been around with a baby. A regular “cinch” had he, since sooner or later every well-regulated family must employ his service. His was a real profession, and he kept a special face for each of his functions. When he was bidding to a funeral his gait was slow and measured, his face grave, and his voice had a mournful droop that matched his rusty black coat and ancient silk hat. If it was a wedding, he was cordial, his step was light and his tile was set at a rakish angle. The man was an artist. And so in their limited sphere were the funeral bearers, who were among our New Year’s callers, too. They were a remnant from the days of the executioner, farther back even, to the time of the Black Death that killed half the people in the town. Their guild was organized then, a sort of mutual insurance concern that made a man sure of getting underground at all events; and, having been established, stayed, as did everything else till it fell to pieces of itself. The aforesaid ordinances bear witness that it took much Dutch courage to carry the dead in the days of pestilence. There is one which forbids giving the “bearers” a barrel of beer at each funeral as wasteful and unseemly. The Old Town did some things after all that are worth considering. We do with less than a barrel in our day, but even when we do without it altogether, there is still waste enough about our funerals that is both unseemly and unfit in a Christian land. [Illustration: “WE SAW IT ON MOONLIGHT NIGHTS.”]