_Burial Service Tradition._--About forty years ago, a young man hung
himself. When his body was taken to the church for interment, the clergymen
refused reading the burial service over him; his friends took him to
another parish, and the clergyman of that place refused also; they then
removed him to an adjoining one, and the clergyman received him and buried
him. The last clergyman said, if any friend of the deceased had cut off his
right hand, and laid it outside the coffin, no clergyman then could refuse
legally receiving and burying the corpse. Query, is this true?
May I ask your readers for an answer, as it will oblige many friends. The
above happened in Derbyshire.
S. ADAMS, Curate.
_Jean Bart's Descent on Newcastle._--I find no notice, either in Sykes's
_Local Records_, or in Richardson's _Local Historian's Table-book_, of the
descent made on Newcastle in 1694 by the celebrated Jean Bart, whom the
Dutch nicknamed "De Fransch Duyvel." Somewhere or other I have seen it
stated that he returned to France with an immense booty. Perhaps some of
your north country correspondents can tell us whether any record of his
visit exists in the archives of the corporation of Newcastle or elsewhere?