The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-10-30
Quaint Old Custom of
 The Rhyme Toll

Since the outbreak of the great war the observance of ancient customs and the adherence to venerable cere- monials have fallen more or less in to disuse. Prior to the war the Rhyme Toll was celebrated every year on the thirtieth of October at Chetwode Manor, near Buckingham, in Bucks. The Chetwode family has held the manor since Saxon times, and the lord of the manor, from ancient times, has had the privilege of levy ing a yearly tax on all cattle found within his district between the 30th of October and the 7th of November. The collection of this tax, called the Rhyme Toll, Is commenced with much ceremony. Since the railway era this tax has been negligible, and has been abandoned, but the tradition has been kept alive by the blowing of horns and the distribution of ale and gin gerbread among those who assemble on the church hill at Buckingham on Oct. 30th.
 The modern ceremony, now laps ing, is but a faint reflection of the great celebration which marked the beginning of the Rhyme Toll in the sixteenth century, when Queen Eliza beth sat upon England's throne. A quaint description of the ceremony of the beginning of the tell is con- tainerd in a document in the British Museum. It reads:
 ''In the begnntngs of the said Drift of the Common, or Rhyme, first at their going forth, they shall blow a. welke-shell, or horn, immediately af- ter the sunrising at the mansion house of the manor of Chetwode, and then in fheir. a hol hlnrxy their horn a second time in the field between Newton Purcell and Barton Hartshorne, in the said county of Bucks; and also shall blow their horn third time at a place near the town of Finmere, in the county of Oxford; and they shall blow their horn a fourth time at a certain stone in the market of the town of Buckingham, and there to give the poor sixpence; and so. going forward in the said manner about the said Drift, shall blow their hon at several bridges called Thornborough Bridge, Kings Bridge, and Bridge Mill. And also they shall blow their horn at the Pound Gate, called Lords Pound. in the Parish of Chetwode. And also the lord of Chetwode has always been us- ed by his officers and servants to drive away all foreign cattle that shall be found within said parishes, fields, etc., to impound the same in any pound of the said towns, and to take for every one of the said foreign beasts twopence for the louth and one penny for foot. for every one of said beasts. And if the toll be not paid within three days, then the next day following, after the rising of the sun, the bailiff or officers of the lord for the time being, shall blow their horn three times at the gate of the said pound, and make proclamation that if any person lack any cattle that shall be in the same pound, let them
 come and show the marks of the same cattle so claimed by them, and they shall have them, paying unto the lord his money in the manner and form before-mentioned, otherwise the said cattle shall so remain, shall be the lords as strays."
 At later period the owners of cat tie in the district paid the toll by an annual tax of one shilling. At the beginning of the present century the lord of the manor realized about $100 a year from this course. but with the
 building of the railway through Bucks this source of income vanished. There is tradition that this toll was granted to an ancient Lord of Chet- wode for his bravery in sla3ingsa fero- cious wild bear which had ravaged | the countryside.