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Feb. 3.] |
SHROVE TUESDAY. |
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Dorking,* first by a perambulation of the streets by the football retinue, composed of grotesquely-dressed persons, to the sounds of music, and in the afternoon by the kicking of the ball up and down the principal thoroughfares of the town. The usual number of men and boys joined in the sport, and played, especially towards the end of the game, with a roughness extremely dangerous to the limbs of the competitors. As 6 o'clock drew near the struggle for victory became more vehement; the palm, however, was obtained, for the fifth year, by the players from the west end of the town. The old custom of tolling the ' pancake bell' during the morning was, on this occasion, as during the last two or three years, dispensed with."—West Surrey Times.
Isle of Wight.
At Brighstone parties of young boys, girls, and very small children parade the village, singing the following words:
" Shroving, shroving, I am come to shroving. White bread and apple pie, My mouth is very dry; I wish I were well a-wet, As I could sing for a nut.
Shroving, shroving, I am come to shroving.
A piece of bread, a piece of cheese,
A piece of your fat bacon,
Dough nuts and pancakes,
All of your own making. Shroving, shroving, I am come to shroving." f
N. & Q. 1st S. vol. xi. p. 239.
Yorkshire.
A correspondent of N. & Q. 2nd S. vol. v. p. 391, says
that all the apprentices in the town of Hedon whose indentures terminate before the return of the day assemble in the
* This custom prevails at Epsom, N. & Q. 3rd S. vol. i. p. 489. It seems to have been observed also at Twickenham, Bushy, Teddington, Kingston. See Every Day Book, vol. i. p. 245.
t For a more detailed account of the Isle of Wight Shrovers, see Halliwell's Popular Rhymes, 1849, p. 246. |
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