Sometimes the clerk seems to have recorded in the register book some
entries which scarcely relate to ecclesiastical usages or spiritual
concerns. Agreements or bargains were inserted occasionally, and the
fact that it was recorded in the church books testified to the binding
nature of the transaction. Thus in the book of St. Mary Magdalene,
Cambridge, in the year 1692, it is announced that Thomas Smith promises
to supply John Wingate "with hatts for twenty shillings the yeare during
life." Mr. Thiselton-Dyer, who records this transaction in his book on
_Social Life as told by Parish Registers_, conjectures with evident
truth that the aforenamed men made this bargain at an ale-house, and the
parish clerk, being present, undertook to register the agreement.
A most remarkable clerk lived at Grafton Underwood in the eighteenth
century, one Thomas Carley, who was born in that village in 1755, having
no hands and one deformed leg. Notwithstanding that nature seemed to
have deprived him of all means of manual labour, he rose to the position
of parish schoolmaster and parish clerk. He contrived a pair of leather
rings, into which he thrust the stumps of his arms, which ended at the
elbow, and with the aid of these he held a pen, ruler, knife and fork,
etc. The register books of the parish show admirable specimens of his
wonderful writing, and I have in my possession a tracing made by Mr.
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