* * * * *
"VOIDING KNIFE," "VOIDER," AND "ALMS-BASKET."
(Vol. vi., pp. 150. 280.; Vol. viii., p. 232.)
In later times (the sixteenth century) the good old custom of placing an
_alms-dish_ on the table was discontinued, and with less charitable
intentions came the less refined custom of removing the broken victuals
after a meal by means of a _voiding-knife_ and _voider_: the latter was a
basket into which were swept by a large wand, usually of wood, or
_voiding-knife_, as it was termed, all the bones and scraps left upon the
trenchers or scattered about the table. Thus, in the old plays, _Lingua_,
Act V. Sc. 13.: "Enter Gustus with a _voiding-knife_;" and in _A Woman
killed with Kindness_, "Enter three or four serving men, one with a
_voider_ and _wooden knife_ to take away."
The voider was still sometimes called the _alms-basket_, and had its
charitable uses in great and rich men's houses: one of which was to supply
those confined in gaols for debt, and such prisoners as had no means to
purchase any food.
In Green's _Tu Quoque_, a spendthrift is cast into prison; the jailer says
to him:
"If you have no money, you had best remove into some cheaper ward; to
the twopenny ward, it is likeliest to hold out with your means; or, if
you will, you may go into the _hole_, and there you may feed for
nothing."
To which he replies:
"Ay, out of the _alms-basket_, where charity appears in likeness of a
piece of stinking fish."
Even this poor allowance to the distressed prisoners passed through several
ordeals before it came to them; and the best and most wholesome portions
were filched from the _alms-basket_, and sold by the jailers at a low price
to people out of the prison. In the same play it is related of a miser,
that--
"He never saw a joint of mutton in his own house these four-and-twenty
years, but always cozened the poor prisoners, for he brought his
victuals out of the _alms-basket_."
In the ordinances of Charles II. (_Ord. and Reg. Soc. Ant._ 367.), it is
commanded--
"That no gentleman whatsoever shall send away my meat or wine from the
table, or out of the chamber, upon any pretence whatsoever; and that
the gentlemen-ushers take particular care herein, that all the meate
that is taken off the table upon trencher-plates be put into a basket
for the poore, and not undecently eaten by any servant in the roome;
and if any person shall presume to do otherwise, he shall be prohibited
{298} immediately to remaine in the chamber, or to come there again,
until further order."
The _alms-basket_ was also called a _maund_, and those who partook of its
contents _maunders_.