that the bishop's carriage might reach the church in safety.

A new font, of sandstone, was then provided, with the initials of the churchwardens inscribed, and the date, 1747. In the ecclesiastical period, when whitewash was supposed to improve the appearance of chiselled stone, this font was not forgotten. The churchwardens in 1747, up to Easter of that year, were James Watkinson and Thomas Aspinwall. What is possibly the font of the still older church lies alongside the one of 1747, in the churchyard. It is a round sandstone cup, without carving or date.

There is an old superstition that the first child baptized in a new font is sure to die early.35 The Rev. Baring Gould tells a story in connection with the new church of Dalton, in Yorkshire. A blacksmith had seven daughters, and a son was born a few days before the consecration of the new church. He came to ask Mr. Gould to baptize the boy in the old font. 66 Why, Joseph," said I, "if you will "only wait till Thursday, the boy can be baptized "in the new font, at the opening of the new church." "Thank you, sir," said the blacksmith, with a wriggle, "but you see it's a lad, and we should be very sorry if he were to dee; na, if 't had been a lass instead, why then you were welcome, for "'twouldn't ha' mattered a ha'penny. Lasses are "ower many, and lads ower few wi' us."

66

Mr. Gomme believes this to be a superstitious relic of the time of the ancient hearth cult. When a tent or building was erected, it was thought necessary for the safety of the building to offer a "foundation sacrifice." At the bottom of the hole to receive the chief tent-pole a slave was placed, to be crushed by the descending pole. He quotes36

35 Gomme's Folklore Relics of Early Village Life, p. 36.

36 Ibid.

the partly Norman church of Brownsover, in Warwickshire, which stands upon the site of an early British settlement. Not very long ago it was found necessary to lower the original foundations, and two skeletons, with Danish skulls, were found in spaces cut out of the solid clay, and covered with carpenters' benches, which must have been designedly placed there before the church was built. "Christian priests had often to compromise "between Christian doctrines and pagan customs, "to obtain a hearing for their new and civilizing “creeds." To the mind of primitive man every locality was the home of, and was protected by, its special deities, and every building or temple was consecrated by slaying some animal to appease the spirit of the place. An old legend connected with Clegg Hall, Lancashire, seems to point to this superstition. It is recorded that a pious monk, wishing to lay two ghosts that haunted the place, came to a parley with them, when they demanded, as a condition of future quiet, a body and a soul. The cunning monk substituted the body of a cock and the sole of a shoe.

From this ancient belief in the necessity for a "foundation sacrifice," we have, no doubt, derived the superstition that the first child baptized in a new church is almost sure to be called away at an early age. As we look at the two fonts in the churchyard and the one in the church, we wonder whether the superstition had root here, and, if so, what were the names of parents who ran the risk, and whether the children were lads or lasses.

A silver chalice and paten were presented to the church consecrated in 1747, by Jane Plumbe, widow, of Downholland. In 1730, John Plumbe, Esq., of Downholland, had given £10 to the church of Halsall, to buy "a silver flaggon and patten." An ancestor of Colonel Tempest, of Tong Hall,

Yorkshire, bought part of the Moore estate in Liverpool, about 1695, and from his family Plumbe Street in Liverpool derived its name. From the

Altcar parish accounts we learn that the supervisors for the Town Row division in 1764 were, "Mr. "Richd Goore for Rev. Thos. Plumb, and Jas. "Rigby for chantrels." In "A true List of "Freeholders of Altcar, which is to serve as Jewryers at the Quarter Sessions of the peace "and County Assizes taken this 17th day of September, 1771," we have the name of Mr. John Plumbe, of Aughton. One striking thing in this list is that to the name of every Roman Catholic is added the word "papist." The Rev. Thomas Plumb became Rector of Aughton in 1734, and the Rev. William Plumb in 1769; and the advowson of Aughton, and considerable property in Aughton parish, is still in the possession of a representative of the Plumbe-Tempest family.

A black-letter Elizabethan New Testament is now in the possession of Mrs. Thomas, widow of the late Vicar of Altcar, picked up by her husband at a farmhouse in Altcar, with an inscription on the back of the title-page, from which it would appear that a Thomas Plumb was born in this neighbourhood in 1643, in the reign of Charles I, twenty-one years before the Altcar registers commence, and three years before the Presbyterian "Mr. Robert Seddon," became minister of Altcar. We have here, probably, his signature at fifty years of age. He died in 1724, in his eighty-second year. This leaf informs us that Jane Plumb died in March, 1760, but from the Halsall registers I find it was March, 1750, and therefore three years after presenting the paten and chalice to "Alker Chappel." The chronicle stops short when about to record the age of Jane Plumb. We have further evidence of the connection of the Plumbe