Souling, Clementingy and Cattcniing. 297
Church allowed two more days' grace for payment than the State.
In Worcestershire we find indications of a similar system. The Dean and Chapter of Worcester also completed their annual rent audit on St. Katharine's Day, and were accus- tomed to celebrate the occasion by sending a bowl of mulled wine, called a Cattern Bowl, to every house in the precincts.^ (In this connection it may be worth while to mention that some of the more isolated places where we hear of Catterning were in early times the property of the see of W^orcester.)
Before concluding, I must just mention a rather confused story told by a correspondent of Gent. Mag. in 1790. At Kidderminster, he says, on the annual election of the Bailiff, a "Lawless Hour" was proclaimed, during which the populace threw cabbage-stalks at each other in the streets. The new Bailiff then went in procession to visit the principal inhabitants, and was received at each house with showers of apples. No date is given, so I am unable to place the custom properly, but considering the locality one cannot but feel that it must be connected with the apple doles. At all events, it exhibits the beginning of an official year marked by gifts of fruit, and by scattering it over the new beginners.^"
■'Brand, i., 412.
'"Since the above was written I have received the following additional notes, by the kindness of Mr. T. Pape of Newcastle-under-Lyme, and of my nephew, Mr. S. A. H. Burne :—
Newcaslle-under-Lyme has been a corporate town since the time of Henry III., and the Mayoral election was held on the Tuesday after Michaelmas Day, from 136S (the earliest of which there is any record) to the passing of the Municipal Reform Act in 1835, when it was changed to the Tuesday after November 9th. On the 25th January, 1910, a boy named Wheatley sued a firm of tradesmen in the local County Court. The newspaper report of the case states that on Tuesday, Nov. 9th, 1909, " plaintiff, in accordance with an annual custom observed at Newcastle on the day of the Mayoral election, called ' clouting- out day,' visited with a number of other boys the premises of tradespeople and residents in the expectation of having nuts, apples, etc., and sometimes
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