[Jerome Betts]

In 1907, it was reported that a Devon parish had succumbed to the 'last line of a limerick' competition craze in aid of a heating sytem for the church. Entrants paid threepence, but the prize is not recorded and nor is the winning line. I supplied what seemed to me a very obvious one for the purposes of an article about 'Liturgical Limericks' and would be curious to know if it was equally obvious to Erastopherians.

That our church is decidedly cold
Is a fact that is plain, so we're told,:
But when ladies combine
There comes a warm time . . .

Tongue in cheek, I also offered a limerick as a centenary celebration of the Devon contest , but my own completing line went astray and the editor printed a line of his own which rhymed but was deliberately long and non-metrical. Again, my line seems obvious, even if a bit of a cop-out, and again I am curious as to whether Erastopherians would hit on exactly the same wording. In case there are metrical medics among the membership, the title is not a misprint, and similarly, in the case of ambitious clergymen, it appears that mitres should not be washed but cleaned, and there are firms who do it, information which may come in useful if you are ever elevated to to the episcopate.

MITRAL ENOSIS

A bishop who buttered his mitre
Found that when it was cleaned it felt tighter.
If this leaves you perplexed
As to what happened next . . .