In former ages leprosy was common here. There was a hospital for lepers this side of Newton, founded by John Gilberd, 4 October 1538, “for the releff of powre lazar people wherof grete nomber with that diseas be now infectid in that partis to the grete daunger of infection of moche people to whom they use to resort and be conversant withal for lacke of convenyent hospitals in the county of Devon for them.” There were much older hospitals for lepers outside Exeter and Barnstaple and Tavistock and other towns; but these were more or less monastic, and had suffered from the dissolution of the monasteries. This hospital was then a quarter of a mile outside Newton Bushell; but the town has spread beyond it, and the old buildings have long since been replaced by alms-houses. Leprosy is quite extinct; but I fear that people hereabouts are careless in the cooking of cured food.
Leprosy would naturally be commoner before the Reformation, as so much fish was eaten during fasts; and the fasts themselves made people weaker and less able to resist disease. I agree with old folks here who say that fasts should be a time of feasting for the poor. “Rich folk have money to buy butcher’s meat in Lent as well as other times; and if they will not eat’n, they should give’n to they as cannot buy.” However, fasting was enjoined on rich and poor alike, and was deemed of more importance than almost anything else. Machiavelli was not easily shocked, but he drew the line at Sforza’s coming to Florence and eating meat in Lent, _Istorie Fiorentine_, VII, anno 1471, “cosa in quel tempo nella nostra città ancora non veduta.” I can myself remember how frightfully Prince Napoleon shocked the pious French by eating beef-steak on Good Friday.
Nobody thought of fasting here on any day except Good Friday; and fasting meant no more than eating hot-cross-buns in addition to the usual food. But whether it came as early as March 20 or as late as April 23, Good Friday was the great day for potato-planting. Whatever the season was, potatoes planted on Good Friday came up better than potatoes planted any other day--at least, that was the common belief here. There must have been a religious or superstitious base for this, and perhaps also for the custom of kicking a football round when the planting had been done. (In my early years a football was hardly ever seen here except on a Good Friday.) I have seen the sailors flogging Judas Iscariot on Good Fridays in Mediterranean ports, and I hear it may be seen on foreign ships in English ports. Judas Iscariot is there a dummy like Guy Fawkes and here, I think, he had become a football. But it is always hard to judge the meaning of such things. Some fifty years ago an acquaintance of mine, a midshipman, went up to Jerusalem with a lot of other midshipmen when the Mediterranean squadron was cruising off that coast; and they marched into Jerusalem singing a song (which then was popular) of Kafoosalum, ... the barber of Jerusalem, ... the daughter of the barber. And good Mahommedans were much impressed, thinking it was a holy song that these young angels sang so fervently.