Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-12-18
THE CURFEW BELL.
SOMETHING ABOUT ITS ORIGIN
 AND USES IN OLDEN TIMES.

Tradition of ShaiScapcarc's Birthp.ace-It
 "ToIled the Rncn of Parting Day."
 Used in England to Sound an Alarm
 of Fire.
 The revival of the curfew at Stratford-on- Avon serves to remind us that one, at least, of those Old World customs which have sur vived down to our times is not declining in popular favor. Even Shakespeare's birth place gains an added charm now that the bell which Shakespeare heard again tolls the knen of parting day" over his grave. Nor does there seem to be auy reason to question the tradition. The custom, whatever its origin, was probably almost universal ln Shakespeare's day, and the age of the bell at Stratford can be ascertained to the satisfac- tion of even the most ardent Shakespearean skeptic. But to let that pass, the incident curiously illustrates the strange fascination which the homely practice-a practice which takes us back from these busy bustling days to the very infancy of the sleeping world still possesses for most people. We doubt whether it is even suspected how generally the custom is still kept up in this country. Curfew is, however, as a matter of fact, still religiously tolled in many hundreds of towns and villages, either all the year round, or which is still more usual-from September to April.
 INTRODUCTION INTO ENGLAND.
 It is almost heresy to question the tradition that curfew came in with William the Con- queror. Nursery historians without number have waxed sentimental over the wrongs of the conquered Saxon, and have conjured up pictures which must still be balmy to the down trodden Celt We all know how the revengeful Norman princeis depicted as hav-
 
 bell to be rung as ;<2ignal for the Saxons to put out their dips and go to bed.
 But, although incidentally the edict doubt less helped to put down the Saxon beer clubs, which were the resort of political conspira- tors, there is plenty of evidence that in Williams time it was, Cs it had long been on the continent if not ill England, primarily intended as a precaution against fire The danger of fire in those primitive times was so constant and so terrible, that the most extraordinary safe guards were enjofned against it; and not without reason ill the days of wooden houses, into which chimneys even were not generally introduced till about the beginning of the Fourteenth century. The prevailing fear lest the squalid huts in which people, and even we'll to do people, lived should be burned down was very real. The old city of London ordinances abound in still more stringent fire regulations. Between Whitsuntide and St. Bartholomew, for example, when it was to be expected that water would be scarce, every one was required, under heavy penalties, to keep barrelful or large earthen vessel in front of his door, in readiness for emergen- cies. But none of these rules had the sweet simplicity of the curfew law, which rendered compulsory custom whose origin certainly dated back long before the Conqueror.
 THE HOUR AND DAY OF THE MONTH.
 A 'cover fire bell" was, for instance, or dered to be rung at some places in Alfred's time, and we find plenty of early traces of the custom or its counterpart as at Ripon the blowing of horn at the market cross, all over the continent. At Vienna the people were required to put out their fires and hang up lanterns outside their doors when the bell rang The latter bylaw might still be made with advantage in many rural and suburban neighborhoods which we could name, where the sparsely scattered gas lamps hardly serve to make darkness visible. There is something of bathos in the conclusion that a supposed tyrannical edict was only 8 reasonable re- gulation, at the time of almost worldwide ap- plication. But, if further proof of this were needed, we know that the Normans certainly never penetrated Roxburghshire, so that the curfew at kelso, unless q modern inno- vation, must have been rung in accordance with immemorial usage, or under some other and probably earlier enactment. Another quaint custom which was grafted upon it and which still survives at. among other places, Melton, Mowbray, Chipping Camden, Bing- ham and Minister, was ringing the day of the month after the curfew, generally on the "tenor," Q wholesome, if unwelcome, re- hinder of the flight of time while similar purpose is served at Exeter cathedral and some other churches by the hour being tolled. AS for the significance of the curfew we need go no further than Grays "Elegy." The 1 bell without doubt was intended from the earliest times to ''toll the knell of parting | day" It sounded. in Longfellow's beautiful | figure, ''the requiem of the dying day;" it was the passing bell of tho "day that is | dead."-London Standard.
 | A Woman with Two Husbands. A romance in real life is reDOrted from Ye