A common Chinese talisman is the "hundred families' lock," to procure which a father goes round among his friends, and, having obtained from an hundred different parties a few of the copper coins of the country, he himself adds the balance to purchase an ornament or appendage fashioned like a lock, which he hangs on his child's neck for the purpose of figuratively locking him to life and causing the hundred persons to be concerned in his attaining old age. _The King's Cock-crower._ A singular custom of matchless absurdity formerly existed in the English court. During Lent an ancient officer of the crown, called the King's Cock-crower, crowed the hour each night within the precincts of the palace. On Ash Wednesday, after the accession of the House of Hanover, as the Prince of Wales (afterwards George II.) sat down to supper, this officer abruptly entered the apartment, and in a sound resembling the shrill pipe of a cock, crowed past ten o'clock. The astonished prince, at first conceiving it to be a premeditated insult, rose to resent the affront, but upon the nature of the ceremony being explained to him, he was satisfied. _Mourning Robes._ Under the empire male Romans wore black, and Roman women wore white mourning. In Turkey, at the present day, it is violet; in China, white; in Egypt, yellow; in Ethiopia, brown; in Europe and America, black; it was white in Spain until the year 1498. The mourning worn by sovereigns and their families is purple. _Mole-skin Eyebrows._ Some of the ladies of the Court of Louis XV., in connection with the patches, rouge and paint with which they disfigured their faces, were so whimsical as to wear eyebrows made out of mole-skin. _Praying for Revenge._ In North Wales, when a person supposes himself highly injured, it is not uncommon for him to go to some church dedicated to a celebrated saint, as Llan Elian, in Anglesea, and Clynog, in Carnarvonshire, and there to offer up his enemy. He kneels down on his bare knees, and offering a piece of money to the saint, calls down curses and misfortunes upon the offender and his family for generations to come, in the most firm belief that the imprecations will be fulfilled. Sometimes they repair to a sacred well instead of to a church. _Selling Snails._ The sale of snails in the town of Tivoli, near Rome, is a source of much profit to the inhabitants of that district in rainy weather, when this curious edible is abundant in the olive groves. The flavor is pronounced delicious, and when artistically cooked, the foreigner does not long decline this much despised crustacea. The cooked snail is said to restore tone to the coating of the stomach when badly injured by strong drink. _Coral and Bells._