WAITS is a name now applied only to those itinerant musicians who, in most of the large towns of England, especially London, go round the principal streets at night for some time before Christman, play two or three tunes, call the hour, then remove to a suitable dis tance. where they go through the same ceremony, and so on till four or five o'clock in the morning.
The word. which was formerly spelled wayglite or eraighte, Is com mon to all the Teutonic languages (German, track ; Dutch, wag: ; Danish, roghl ; Swedish, wakt ;) and the root is the same as the Anglo Saxon wecean, to wake, and seaman (pronounced wakien), to watch, and the English make and watch.
The wayghto, or wayte, was originally a minstrel watchman, end the kings of England, as well as the mayors of large corporate cities and towns, scent to have employed them in preference to common watch men. By a document in ilymer'e Fredem,' vol. ix., " De Minstriellis propter Solidi= Regis providendis " it appears that In the reign of Edward IV., "a wayte that nIghtelye from 3lyehclmas to Shreve Thoreday pipetho the watch° within this courts Lower tymes, in the somere nyghtes three times, and make the bon gayte at every chambere (loam and office, as well as for foam of pyckerea and pullers; ho eatoth in the hello with the mynstrIelles;" it then goes on to state his allow ance of bread, ale, coals, and so forth, for oaoh night.
The waits seem to have been always distinct from the common watch, which was called the marching watch, and never, we believe, the waits. At a later period, the term wait,' seems to have been restricted to the lamd of minstrels kept by the city of London and other large cities and towns. We read of the City waits frequently, from their attendance on the City pageants, and of tho waits of South wark and other place,. In 'The Tatler,' No. 222, a writer from Nottingham complains that the young men of fashion there "make love with the town music," and that "the waits often help his through his courtship." The waits, or stipendiary town-musicians, have for many years, we believe, ceased to exist in every corporate city and town in 'England, though there are yet town-bands, who, at least in some canes, are stipendiary. musicians.
(Brand's Popular Antiquities, by Ellis ; Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, by I Ione.)