MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.

ADVENT.

(For the Mirror.)

In the North Riding of Yorkshire, the young folks retain a very ancient custom during Advent. They make a wax figure representing the infant Jesus, and place it in a small wooden case, with evergreens, which hide all but the figure. A napkin is thrown over the box; and the puppet is thus carried about, and exhibited from door to door, by a boy, the others chanting some supplicatory lines. The same custom prevails in Wales.

In Italy, a wax figure representing the Virgin, inclosed in a beautifully carved wooden case, is placed on the back of an ass, and exhibited through the country during Advent. Every traveller on seeing it prostrates himself immediately, and crosses himself, and considers himself in duty bound to bestow his charity on the proprietor. Others carry emblematical figures through the different towns, or sit by the road side, and uncover the effigy to every passer-by.

W.H.H.

CURIOUS MANORIAL RIGHT.

(For the Mirror.)

At Ripley Castle, in Yorkshire, the seat of Sir William Ingilby, there is in the great staircase an elegant Venetian window, in the divisions of which, on stain-glass, are a series of escutcheons, displaying the principal quarterings and intermarriages of the Ingilby family since their settling at Ripley, during a course of 430 years.

In one of the chambers of the tower is the following sentence, carved on the frieze of the wainscot:—"In the yeire of owre Ld. MDLV. was this howse buyldyd, by Sir Wyllyam Ingilby, Knight, Philip and Marie reigning that time."

John Pallisser, of Bristhwaite, formerly held his lands of the manor of Ripley, by the payment of a red rose at Midsummer, and by carrying the boar's head to the lord's table all the twelve days of Christmas.

W.G.C.