However, the old parish clerk was discovered, who had preserved the
books; the entry was found, and all went well and the title to the
estate established. How many have failed to obtain their rights and
just claims through the gross neglect of the keepers or custodians of
parochial documents?
An old register was kept in the drawer of an old table, together with
rusty iron and endless rubbish, by a parish clerk who was a poor
labouring man. Another was said to be so old and "out of date" and so
difficult to read by the parson and his neighbours, that it had been
tossed about the church and finally carried off by children and torn
to pieces. The leaves of an old parchment register were discovered
sewed together as a covering for the tester of a bedstead, and the
daughters of a parish clerk, who were lace-makers, cut up the pages of
a register for a supply of parchment to make patterns for their lace
manufacture. Two Leicestershire registers were rescued, one from the
shop of a bookseller, the other from the corner cupboard of a
blacksmith, where it had lain perishing and unheard of more than
thirty years. The following extract from _Notes and Queries_ tells of
the sad fate of other books:--
"On visiting the village school of Colton it was discovered that
the 'Psalters' of the children were covered with the leaves of the
Parish Register; some of them were recovered, and replaced in the
parish chest, but many were totally obliterated and cut away.
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