he dying
person, so taking their last farewell; and endeavoured likewise to
receive in their mouth his last breath, as fancying his soul to expire
with it, and enter into their bodies. When any person died in debt at
Athens, the laws of that city gave leave to creditors to seize the
dead body, and deprive it of burial till payment was made; whence the
corpse of Miltiades, who died in prison, being like to want the honour
of burial, his son Cimon had no other means to release it, but by
taking upon himself his father's debts and fetters. Sometime before
interment, a piece of money was put into the corpse's mouth, which was
thought to be Charon's fare for wafting the departed soul over the
infernal river.

P.T.W.

* * * * *

SINGULAR MANORIAL CUSTOM.

(_For the Mirror_.)

The Manor of Broughton Lindsay, in Lincolnshire, is held under that of
Caistor, by this strange service: viz. that annually, upon Palm
Sunday, the deputy of the Lord of the Manor of Broughton, attends the
church at Caistor, with a new cart whip in his hand, which he cracks
thrice in the church porch; and passes with it on his shoulder up the
nave into the chancel, and seats himself in the pew of the lord of the
manor, where he remains until the officiating minister is about to
read the second lesson; he then proceeds with his whip, to the lash of
which he has in the meantime affixed a purse, which ought to contain
thirty silver pennies (instead of which a single half crown is
substituted,) and kneeling down before the reading desk, he holds the
purse, suspended over the minister's head, all the time he is reading
the lesson. After this he returns to his seat. When divine service is
over, he leaves the whip and purse at the manor house.

H.B.A.

* * * * *

The Contemporary Traveller.

* * * * *

MEXICO, OR NEW SPAIN.

The name of New Spain was at first given only to Yucatan by Grijalva
and his followers; but Cortez extended it to the whole empire of
Montezuma, which is described by the earliest writers to have reached
from Panama to New California. This, however, appears, from more
recent researches, on the accuracy of which Humboldt relies with
reason, to have been larger than the reality justified; and the whole
of Tenochtitlan may be said to have been contained in the present
states of Vera Cruz, Oaxaca, Puebla, Mexico, and Valadolid