WAYZGOOSE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5341, 10 May 1878, Page 2

WAYZGOOSE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sib, —In your issue of Monday I read with interest an account of a wayzgoose. X beg to baud you an extract from “Notes and Queries,’* second series, vol.iv, 1877, which I think gives a good explanation of the origin of the term, and may dispel the mist which appears to surround its derivation. It is as follows ;

“ The derivation of the term way-goose is from the old English word * wayz,’ stubble. B-»yley informs us that 4 wayz-goose or stubblegoose is an entertainment given to journeymen iu the beginning of winter.’ Hence a wayzgoose was the head dish at the annual feast of the forefathers of the typographical fraternity, and is not altogether unknown as a dainty dish in our days. Formerly, however, this festival was holden in autumn on commencing work by candlelight.

“ September, when by custom right divine. , Geese are ordained to bleed at Michael’s shrine.” — C'tiurdiill. Moxon, in his “ Mechanick Exercises,” 1683, tells us that “it is customary for all the journeymen to make every year new paper windows, whether the old will serve again or no, because that day they make them the master printer gives them a way-goose ; that is, he makes them a good feast, and not only entertains them at his own house, but, besides, gives them money to spend at the alehouse or tavern at night; and to this feast they invite the corrector [now called the reader], founder, smith, joiner, and ink-maker, who all of them severally (except tha corrector in his own civility) open their purse-strings, and add their benevolence (which workmen account their duty, because they generally choose these workmen) to the master printer’s, but from the corrector they expect nothing, because the master printer choosing him the workmen can do him no kindness. These way-gooses are always kept about Bartholomew-tide ; and till the master printer has given this way-goose the journeymen do not use to work by candlelight.” The same custom was also formerly peculiar to Coventry, where it was usual, in the large manufactories of ribbons and watches, as well as among the silk-dyers, when they commenced the use of candles, to have their annual waygoose.—Yours, &c., A Printer's Devil.