Note 19 — FOOTNOTES

The custom of ‘riding the stang’ is now obsolete, so that the date of this story must be put back a number of years, though Mr. Brockett,[19] writing in his glossary of Northumbrian words, in the early part of this century, says, ‘I have myself been witness to processions of this kind. Offenders of this description are mounted a-straddle on a long pole, or stang, supported upon the shoulders of their companions. On this painful and fickle seat they are borne about the neighbourhood backwards, attended by a swarm of children huzzaing and throwing all manner of filth. It is considered a mark of the highest reproach, and the person who has been thus treated seldom recovers his character in the opinion of his neighbours.’ The method of divination by the puddings has been practised within living memory, and even yet may be resorted to by way of a jest upon occasion.