at our crossways
in olden times with a bell and a clapper. They would call the
attention of passers-by with the bell, or with the clapper, and would
receive their alms in a cup, or a basin, at the end of a long pole. The
clapper was an instrument made of two or three boards, by rattling
which the wretched lepers incited people to relieve them. Thus they
obtained the name of Rattle Pouches, which appellation has been
extended to this small plant, in allusion to the little purses which it
hangs out by the wayside. Because of these miniature pockets the
herb is also named Toy Wort; and Pick Purse, through being
supposed to steal the goodness of the land from the farmer. In
Queen Elizabeth's time leper hospitals were common throughout
England; and many of the sufferers were banished to the Lizard, in
Cornwall.

The Shepherd's Purse is now announced as the chief remedy of the
seven "marvellous medicines" prepared by Count Mattaei, of
Bologna, which are believed by his disciples to be curative of
diseases otherwise intractable, such as cancer, internal aneurism,
and destructive leprosy.

Count Mattaei professed to extract certain vegetable [514]
electricities found stored up in this, and some other plants, and to
utilize them for curative purposes with almost miraculous success.
His other herbs, as revealed by a colleague, Count Manzetti, are the
Knotgrass, the Water Betony, the Cabbage, the Stonecrop, the
Houseleek, the Feverfew, and the Watercress. Lady Paget, when
interviewing Count Mattaei, gathered that Shepherd's Purse is the
herb which furnishes the so-called "blue electricity," of
extraordinary efficacy in controlling haemorrhages. Small birds are
fond of the seeds: and the young radical leaves are sold in
Philadelphia as greens in the Spring.

SILVERWEED.

Two _Potentillas_ occur among our common native plants, and
possess certain curative virtues (as popularly supposed), the
Silverweed and the Cinquefoil. They belong to the Rose tribe, and
grow abundantly on our roadsides, being useful as mild astringents.

The _Potentilla anserina_ (Silverweed) is found, as its adjective
suggests, where geese are put to feed.

Country folk often call it Cramp Weed: but it is more generally
known as Goose Tansy, or Goose Gray, because it is a spurious
Tansy, fit only for a goose; or, perhaps, because eaten by geese.
Other names for the herb are Silvery Cinquefoil, and Moorgrass. It
occurs especially on clay soils, be