HOCKING, SILAS KITTO English novelist, was born at St. Stephens, Cornwall, on March 24, 185o, and educated at the local grammar school. He was ordained a Free Church minister in 187o but resigned his pastorate in 1896. Both he and his younger brother JOSEPH HOCKING (186o-1937 ) who had a similar upbringing for the Nonconformist ministry, became prolific writers of widely read novels with a distinct religious note. Among those of Silas Hocking were Alec Green (1878) ; Who Shall Judge? (191O) ; His Own Accuser (1917), and Watchers in the Dawn (1920). Among those of Joseph Hocking were Jabez Easterbrook (1891) ; Zillah (1892) ; The Scarlet Woman (1899) ; Tommy and the Maid of Athens (1917), and The Pomp of Yesterday (1918).
an ancient general holiday in England, cele brated on the second Monday and Tuesday of ter Easter Sunday. Hock-Tuesday was an important term day, rents being then payable, for with Michaelmas it divided the rural year into its winter and summer halves. No trace of the word is found in Old English, and "hock-day" appears first in the i 2th century. The characteristic pastime of hock-tide was called binding. On Mon day the women, on Tuesday the men, stopped all passers of the opposite sex and bound them with ropes till they bought their release with a small payment, or a rope was stretched across the highroads and the passers were obliged to pay toll. The money thus collected seems to have gone towards parish expenses. Many entries are found in parish registers under "Hocktyde money." The hock-tide celebration became obsolete in the beginning of the 18th century. At Coventry a play called "The Old Coventry Play of Hock Tuesday" was suppressed at the Reformation.