probably throw both skin and tail, spines
and all, into the rubbish-hole outside the
kitchen; there they would remain till
removed. And, next, when did this removal
take place? A curious book Collectanea
Curiosa—published at Oxford in seventeen
hundred and eighty-one, tells us. In this book
there is an article entitled, "Out of the
journal book of the expences of all the buildings
of Christ Church College, Oxon, which I
had of Mr. Pore, of Blechinton."

The second item runs thus: " Spent about
the femerell of the new kitchen and sundry
gutters pertaining to the same, xviijs. viijd."

Further on we find, "Paid to Thomas
Hewister, for carriage of earth and rubble
from the fayre gate, and the new stepull to
fill the ditches, on the backside of the
college, clvj. loads, at a peny the load by
computation, xiijs."

Again: "Paid to Mr. David Griffith, Priest,
for his stipend for wages, as well for keeping
of the monastery of St. Frideswide, and
saying of Divine service after the suppression
of the same unto the first stalling of the dean
and canons in the said college, as for his
labours in overseeing the workmen dayly
labouring there in all by the space of thirteen
months, vij £."

From this evidence it will appear that for
a considerable space of time (probably about
five years) many alterations were made, and
much earth removed from place to place.
The cathedral, and, in fact, nearly all the
quadrangle as will appear by comparing
their levels with that of the street outside
stand upon made ground. It is probable,
therefore, that some of the earth from
outside the monkish kitchen, or other rubbish
hole, was carted to form the floor of the
cathedral, and with it, of course, any rubbish
that happened to be there.

This, then, was the fate of our thornback's
spine. The thornback was eaten by the
monks of St. Frideswide, the spine thrown
away, unheeded, unregarded, to be
disinterred, after the lapse of more than three
hundred years, at the funeral of a college
dean, and finally to be honoured by having
its history recorded in Household Words.

             LITTLE SAINT ZITA.

THERE is a collection of horrible, though
admirably executed etchings, by the "noble
Jacques Callott," extant, called Les Saincts
et Sainctes de l'Annee. It is a complete
pictorial calendar of the Romish martyrology.
No amount of indigestion, caused by suppers
of underdone pork-chops; no nightmares,
piled one on another; no distempered imaginings
of topers in the worst state of delirium
tremens; no visions of men with guilt-laden
consciences; could culminate into a tenth
part of tho horrors that the noble Jacques has
perpetuated with his immortal graver. All the
refinements of torture, invented by the ruthless
and cruel pagans, and inflicted by them
on the early confessors, are here set down in
chiaro oscuro; not a dislocated limb is
omitted, not a lacerated muscle is passed
over. The whole work is a vast dissecting-
room—a fasciculus of scarifications, maimings,
and dismemberments—of red-hot pincers,
scalding oil, molten lead, gridirons, wire
scourges, jagged knives, crowns of spikes,
hatchets, poisoned daggers, tarred shirts, and
wild beasts.

The blessed saints had a bad time of it for
certain. How should we, I wonder, with
our pluralities, our Easter-offerings, and
regium donum, our scarlet hats and stockings,
and dwellings in the gate of Flam; our
Exeter Hall meetings and buttered muffins
afterwards; our first-class missionary
passages to the South Seas, and grants of land
and fat hogs from King "Wabashongo; our
dean and chapter dinners, and semi-military
chaplains' uniforms (Oh, last-invented, but
not least scorn-worthy of humbugs!); how
should we confront the stake, the shambles,
and the carnifex, the scourge, the rack, and
the amphitheatre? Surely the faith must
have been strong, or the legends untrue!

Yet there are more saints than the noble
Jacques ever dreamed of in his grim category,
crowded as it is. Saint Patrick, if we
may credit the Irish legend, had two birth-
days; still, the number of saints, all duly
canonised, is so great, that the year can
scarcely spare them the sixth of a birth-day
apiece. Only yesterday, the postman (he is
a Parisian postman, and, in appearance, is
something between a policeman and a field-
marshal in disguise) brought me a deformed
little card, on which was pasted an almanac
with a whole calendar-full of saints, neatly
tied up with cherry-coloured ribbon,
accompanying the gift with the compliments of the
season, and an ardent wish that the new year
might prove bonne et belle to me; all of
which meant that I should give him two
francs, on pain of being denounced to the
concierge as a curmudgeon, to the landlord
as a penniless lodger, and to the police as a
suspicious character. Musing over the little
almanac, in the futile attempt to get two
francs' worth of information out of it, I found
a whole army of saints, of whom I had never
heard before, and noticed the absence of a
great many who are duly set down in another
calendar I possess. Would you believe that
neither Saint Giles nor Saint Swithin was
to be found in my postman's hagiology—that
no mention was made of Saint Waldeburga,
or of the blessed Saint Wuthelstan; while on
the other hand I found Saint Yon, Saint
Fiacre, Saint Ovid, Saint Babylas, Saint
Pepin, Saint Ponce, Saint Frisque, Saint
Nestor, and Saint Pantaloon? What do we
know of these saints in England? Where
were Saint Willibald, Saint Winifred, Saint
Edward the Confessor, and Saint Dunstan,
the nose-tweaker? Nowhere! Yet they