forfeits
“in a barber's shop—Like the,”
MEASURE FOR MEASURE, v. 1.
319.
“[Barbers'] shops were places of great resort, for passing
away time in an idle manner. By way of enforcing some kind of regularity, and, perhaps, at
least as much to promote drinking, certain laws were usually hung up, the transgression of
which was to be punished by specific forfeitures. It is not to be wondered, that laws of
that nature were as often laughed at as obeyed.”
Nares's Gloss. in“Forfeits,”
etc. Steevens pronounced the metrical list of forfeits published by Kenrick to be a
forgery; but it would seem that they are not wholly so. “Upwards of forty years ago,” says Moor,
“I saw a string of such rules at the tonsor's of Alderton,
near the sea. I well recollect the following lines to have been among them; as they are
also in those of Nares [that is, those cited from Kenrick by Nares in his Gloss.], said to have been copied in Northallerton in Yorkshire:
lsquo;First come, first serve—then come not late,’;
” Suffolk Words, 1823, p. 133.
lsquo;First come, first serve—then come not late,’;
” Suffolk Words, 1823, p. 133.
