A Bacon custom in Brittany has been referred to. Mention may also be made of a German story, "The Man and the Flitch of Bacon"; also of the Flitch which hung in the old Red Tower of Vienna with doggerel below it which Dr. Bell has thus translated-- Is there to be found a married man That in verity declare can, That his marriage him doth not rue, That he has no fear of his wife for a shrew, He may this Bacon for himself down hew? The tale goes that a would-be possessor of the Red Tower Bacon asked, when a ladder had been brought for his assistance, that some one should cut down the Flitch for him, as if he got a grease-spot on his best clothes his wife would scold him! Needless to say, this applicant was not allowed to have the Bacon. Dr. Bell traces to the earliest times the origin of all customs of hanging up Bacon. Does not Dionysius Halicarnassus mention the presence of a fine Flitch in the chief temple at Alba Longa? Jewellers still sell as charms little pigs of gold, silver and bog oak, and in time past the side of what had once been a sow was no doubt displayed as an emblem of fertility. APPENDIX The Last Prior of Dunmow In the Manuscript Department of the British Museum one may turn over in Latin and in an old English transcript, the household accounts kept by Geoffrey Shether, the last Prior of Dunmow. During the last four years of the Priory's existence, 1531-5, that is up to the time of the dissolution of the minor monasteries, the Prior entered up his accounts every Sunday in a long narrow book such as one sees on bakers' counters. The entries at the very end of the book are in regard to the payment to one "Purcas"--still a Little Dunmow name--"for iiij days' werke, xxd," and to two "labryng" men for their "werke." Earlier in the book a payment "to my stuarde for kepying of my Curte at Dunmowe" is chronicled. A large proportion of the expenses are in respect of farm work or stock. There is an entry more than once for "stoor bolox." On several occasions expenditure was incurred for the ringing of pigs and the destruction of rats. There are also various sums for work on the steeple. The fishponds of our illustration do not appear to have yielded all the fish needed by the Priory, for there are two entries for "fyscche" bought. If there is no mention of Bacon, there are "rewardes for venison," and if no allusion occurs to the Flitch ceremony, it was not, apparently, because the Prior would have been above being interested in such a mundane thing, for twice or thrice he puts down "my costs at the feyr," and he gave a "reward to the Lord of Mysrule of Dunmow." Moreover, is there not an entry, "For sugar candy I bowte"? --------------------------------------------------------------------- [Illustration: THE WICHNOR FLITCH, SILVER RING, RELIQUARY, IMPRESSION] THE WICHNOR FLITCH.--The wooden flitch over the fireplace at Wichnor Hall, near Lichfield, where there was a local Bacon custom.