130 CORNISH FEASTS
Many other customs were formerly observed in Penzance on Shrove Tuesday, peculiar, I believe, to this town.
Women and boys stood at the corners of the streets, with well- greased, sooty hands, which they rubbed over people's faces. I remember, not more than thirty years ago, seeing a little boy run into a house in a great hurry, and ask for what was he wanted. He had met a woman who had put her hands affectionately on each side of his face, and said, " Your father has been looking for you, my dear." She had left the marks of her dirty fingers.
The butchers' market was always thoroughly cleaned in the afternoon, to see if the town hose were in perfect repair, and great merriment was often excited by the firemen turning the full force of the water on some unwary passer-by.
People, too, were occasionally deluged by having buckets of water thrown over them. Every Shrove Tuesday after dusk men and boys went about and threw handfuls of shells, bottles of filth, &c., in at the doors. It was usual then for drapers to keep their shops open until a very late hour; and I have been told that boys were occasionally bribed by the assistants to throw something particularly disagreeable in on the floors, that the masters might be frightened, and order the shops to be shut. Still later in the evening signs were taken down, knockers wrenched off, gates unhung and carried to some distance. This last was done even as far down as 1881. Pulling boats up and putting them in a mill-pool (now built over) was a common practice at Mousehole in the beginning of the century.
- ' In Landewednack on Shrove Tuesday children from the ages of
six to twelve perambulate the parish begging for * Col-perra ' (pro- bably an old Cornish word) ; but, whatever be its meaning, they expect to receive eatables or halfpence. As few refuse to give, they collect during the day a tolerable booty, in the shape of money, eggs, buns, apples, &c. The custom has existed from time immemorial, but none of the inhabitants are acquainted with its origin." — (A Week in the Lizard J by Eev. C. A. Johns, B.B., F.L.S.)
I have been favoured by the Eev. S. Bundle, Godolphin, with the formula repeated by the children on this occasion (now almost for-
