C — Chair-days to Chancellor of England (Part 1 of 3)

Chair-days Old age.

“I had long supposed that chair-days, the beautiful name for those days of old age ... was of Shakespeare's own invention ... but this is a mistake ... the word is current in Lancashire still.”- Trench: English Past and Present, v.

“In thy reverence and thy chair-days, thus
To die in ruffian battle.”
Shakespeare: 2 Henry VI., act v. 2.

Chair of St. Peter (The). The office of the Pope of Rome, said to be founded by St. Peter, the apostle; but St. Peter's Chair means the Catholic festival held in commemoration of the two episcopates founded by the apostle, one at Rome, and the other at Antioch (January 18th and February 22nd).

Chalcedony [kalcedony]. A precious stone, consisting of half - transparent quartz: so called from Chalcedon, in Asia Minor, where it was first found. Its chief varieties are agate, carnelian, cat's-eye, chrysoprase, flint, hornstone, onyx, plasma, and sard.
    Albertus Magnus (book i. chap. 2) says: “It dispels illusions and all vain imaginations. If hung about the neck as a charm, it is a defence against enemies, and keeps the body healthful and vigorous.

Chaldee's (Kal-dees). The Land of the Chaldees. Babylonia.

Chalk
   I'll chalk out your path for you- i.e. lay it down or plan it out as a carpenter or ship-builder plans out his work with a piece of chalk.
   I can walk a chalk as well as you. I am no more drunk than you are. The allusion is to the ordeal on board ship of trying men suspected of drunkenness. They were required to walk along a line chalked on the deck, without deviating to the right or left.
   The tapster is undone by chalk, i.e. credit. The allusion is to scoring up credit on a tally with chalk. This was common enough early in the nineteenth century, when milk scores, bread scores, as well as beer scores were general.
   Chalk it up. Put it to his credit.
    As good-humoured sarcasm, Chalk it up! is tantamount to saying, “What you have done so astonishes me that I must make some more or less permanent record of it.”

Chalk and Cheese I know the difference between chalk and cheese. Between what is worthless and what is valuable, between a counterfeit and a real article. Of course, the resemblance of chalk to cheese has something to do with the saying, and the alliteration helps to popularise it.

“This Scotch scarecrow was no more to be compared to him than chalk was to cheese”- Sir W. Scott: Woodstock, xxiv.

   I cannot make chalk of one and cheese of the other. I must treat both alike; I must show no favouritism.
   They are no more like than chalk is like cheese. There may be a slight apparent resemblance, but there is no real likeness.

Chalks
   I beat him by long chalks. Thoroughly. In allusion to the ancient custom of making merit marks with chalk, before lead pencils were so common.
   Walk your chalks. Get you gone. Lodgings wanted for the royal retinue used to be taken arbitrarily by the marshal and sergeant-chamberlain, the inhabitants were sent to the right about, and the houses selected were notified by a chalk mark. When Mary de Medicis, in 1638, came to England, Sieur de Labat was employed to mark “all sorts of houses commodious for her retinue in Colchester.” The same custom is referred to in the Life and Acts of Sir William Wallace, in Edinburgh. The phrase is “Walk, you're chalked,” corrupted into Walk your chalks.
    In Scotland, at one time, the landlord gave the tenant notice to quit by chalking the door.

“The prisoner has cut his stick, and walked his chalk, and is off to London.”- C. Kingsley.

Challenge to the Array (A

Challenge to the Polls (A). An objection or protest to certain persons selected for a jury. If a man is not qualified to serve, or if he is supposed to be biassed, he may be challenged. In capital cases a prisoner may challenge persons without assigning any reason, and in cases of treason as many as thirty- five. (22 Henry VIII., c. 14; 7, 8 George IV., c. 28, s. 3.)