rochial documents?

An old register was kept in the drawer of an old table, together with
rusty iron and endless rubbish, by a parish clerk who was a poor
labouring man. Another was said to be so old and "out of date" and so
difficult to read by the parson and his neighbours, that it had been
tossed about the church and finally carried off by children and torn
to pieces. The leaves of an old parchment register were discovered
sewed together as a covering for the tester of a bedstead, and the
daughters of a parish clerk, who were lace-makers, cut up the pages of
a register for a supply of parchment to make patterns for their lace
manufacture. Two Leicestershire registers were rescued, one from the
shop of a bookseller, the other from the corner cupboard of a
blacksmith, where it had lain perishing and unheard of more than
thirty years. The following extract from _Notes and Queries_ tells of
the sad fate of other books:--

"On visiting the village school of Colton it was discovered that
the 'Psalters' of the children were covered with the leaves of the
Parish Register; some of them were recovered, and replaced in the
parish chest, but many were totally obliterated and cut away. This
discovery led to further investigation, which brought to light a
practice of the Parish Clerk and Schoolmaster of the day, who to
certain 'goodies' of the village, gave the parchment leaves for
hutkins for their knitting pins."

Still greater desecration has taken place. The registers of South
Otterington, containing several entries of the great families of
Talbot, Herbert, and Falconer, were kept in the cottage of the parish
clerk, who used all those preceding the eighteenth century for waste
paper, and devoted not a few to the utilitarian employment of singeing
a goose. At Appledore the books were lost through having been kept in
a public-house for the delectation of its frequenters.

But many parsons have kept their registers with consummate care. The
name of the Rev. John Yate, rector of Rodmarton, Gloucestershire, in
1630, should be mentioned as a worthy and careful custodian on account
of his quaint directions for the preservation of his registers. He
wrote in the volume:--

"If you will have this Book last, bee sure to aire it att the
fier or in the Sunne three or foure times a yeare--els it will
grow dankish and rott, therefore look to it. It will not be
amisse when you finde it dankish to wipe over th