Brick in the hat, phr. (American).—A drunken man is said to have a brick in his hat, the allusion being to top-heaviness and inability to preserve a steady gait.
Brick-duster.—See Brickfielder.
Brickdusts, subs. (military).—The Fifty-third Regiment of Foot, so nicknamed from its facings, which are scarlet. Another slang appellation is 'The Old Five-and-Threepennies,' from its number and the daily pay of an ensign.
Brickfielder or Brickduster, subs. (Australian colloquial).—In Sydney the name given to a dust or sand-storm brought by southerly winds from sand hills locally known as the Brickfields—hence the name. Also called the buster or southerly burster.
18(?). Munday, Our Antipodes. In October, 1848, as I find by my diary, I witnessed a fine instance of a nocturnal brickfielder. Awakened by the roaring of the wind I arose and looked out. It was bright moonlight, or it would have been bright but for the clouds of dust, which, impelled by a perfect hurricane, curled up from the earth, and absolulely muffled the fair face of the planet. Pulverised specimens of every kind and colour of soil within two miles of Sydney, flew past the house high over the chimney tops in lurid whirl-winds, now white, now red. It had all the appearance of an American prairie fire, barring the fire.
1853. Fraser's Mag., XLVIII., 515. What the Sydney people call a brickfielder.
1886. Cowan, Charcoal Sk. The buster and brickfielder: Austral red-dust blizzard and red-hot simoon.
Bricklayer, subs. (clerical).—A clergyman. [It has been hazarded that the term is a familiar corruption of Rubricklayer, to denote general character for Rubrical exactness—said of men who not only lay down Liturgical law, but obey it. With more propriety, however, may it be held as referring to the important part taken by the mediæval clergy in ecclesiastical architecture. Mr. Thomas Boys, in the course of an interesting article on the subject [N. and Q., 2 S., vii., 115], traces its historical derivation somewhat as follows:—It is well known how in former days the building of cathedrals and other sacred edifices was patronised and promoted both by the dignitaries and by the clergy generally; but it is not, perhaps, matter of equal notoriety that many chapters and collegiate bodies had a functionary called a workman (operarius), on whom devolved the charge of repairing and maintaining the sacred fabric, and who was often one of their own number. In fact, he was of the dignitaries of the church. 'Operarius, Dignitas, in Collegiis Canonicorum, et Monasteriis, cui operibus publicis vacare incumbit' (Carpenter). The office of this operarius or workman was called 'operaria.' 'Operaria. Dignitas Operarii in collegiis canonicorum et monasteriis' (ib.). In Spain, the clerical operarius was called by the corresponding Spanish name, obrero (a workman). 'Obrero. Se llama tambien el que cuida de las obras, en las Iglesias O Comunidades, que en algunas Cathedrales es dignidad' (Dicc. de la Ac. Esp.); i.e., in some cathedrals the office made the holder of it a dignitary. Salazar de Mendoza, in his 'Cronica del Cardenal Don R. G. de Men-
