Street (a corruption of Hospital Street). The Spital in the days of the abbey was an asylum where the poor and sick could go for a night's lodging, and also served as a shelter for wearied travellers and pilgrims. Above the vicarage rises a green meadow still called the Cockpit. Here in old days the whole village used to turn out and witness the cruel sport that took place there.

In a fine old stone house which was formerly called Ashfield Hall (the town house of the Lawleys, and which was afterward turned into an inn, and known as the "Blue Bridge") some workmen who were repairing the house found, in 1853, a roll of parchment. The house at that time belonged to Dr. Brookes. Unfortunately only one sheet was saved, as the men destroyed the rest, alleging that they were sure none of the quality would wish to soil theirselves with such old rubbish." The document saved related to the resignation of the priory of Bermondsey by John of Cusancia to Henry, superior of the priory of Wenlock, and is dated 1360.

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Sir Thomas Botelar, the first Protestant vicar of Much Wenlock, gives a charming description of an entertainment held there, "by desire of the burgesses of the town, at the house of Mr. R. Lawley of the Ash, to my Lord Bishop of Worcester, President of the Marches of Wales, and Justice Townsynde, on their way to Bridgnorth," in 1554. We are told that "the mansion was decked in the best manner, and that silver plate was placed before them, and that they partook of cakes, fine wafers, wyne white and claret, and sack," and that when they rose the distinguished guests "gave great and gentle thanks." Charles I. dated some despatches thence, and tradition says slept one night there. Wenlock still has its stocks, and formerly had its pillory. The whippingposts and irons can be seen in the lower part of the old market hall. The gallows was on the Edge top. "Scolds" and "shrews" as a punishment were made to wear a bridle. This was a kind of iron helmet which fitted on tightly to the mouth and prevented any movement of the tongue. There was also a cucking or cockold stool, for ducking women of evil life.

The old folk can many of them re

member seeing women wear the bridle, men whipped round the town, and boys and men punished for milder delinquencies by imprisonment in the stocks.

An old friend of mine, Mrs. Swyney, said to me, "Often have I seen poor Judy Cookson walked round the town in the shrew's bridle. 'Er was said to be the best abuser in the borough, and 'er wud go and curse anybody for threeha'pence-that was the fee." Mrs. Swyney's mother once, moved to generous pity at the sight of this brutal punishment, exclaimed that she "didn't care how much a woman 'ad sinned, no living soul could deserve that torture;" for I heard "it punished a Christian terrible," and once during the operation of wearing it" the poor creature's face streamed with blood, and two teeth fell out in removing the bridle." Prisoners were whipped from the dungeon below the Guildhall to the White Hart Inn, and so round the town. After they were whipped their stripes were washed. with salt and water, and they were let go. All punishments were inflicted on Mondays-market days. Mrs. Swyney was wont to say, Judy used to abuse Sir Watkin's agent something terrible, 'im as they called King Collins,' for 'e did what 'e listed and none durst say 'im nay. She was a fearsome pelrollick, it is true, was Judy, but I never knowed as the bridle did 'er any good. It makes me swimey-headed," the old lady would. add, "only to think of those Mondays, with the relatives all cursing and crying, the lads laughing and jeering, and the lawyer men looking on to see as their law was carried out."

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Every intelligent foreigner believes that during the last century Englishmen habitually bought and sold their wives at Smithfield. A similar case took place at Wenlock some sixty years ago. Mrs. Swyney has often told me. the story of how a man by the name of Yates sold his wife, Mattie,' to a man called Richards." Yates brought in his missus in a cart, with a halter round her neck, from Brocton, and sold her for 2s. 6d. When Yates got to the market-place 'e turned shy, and tried to get out of the business, but Mattie mad' un stick to it. 'Er flipt her apern in 'er gude man's face, and said, 'Let be, yer rogue. I wull be sold; I wants a

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change."" Contrary to what might have been expected, Mattie's second marriage turned out very happily, and she and Richards lived for many years amicably in the Bull Ring. My old friend has often told me that formerly they didn't mess with one baby at a time in christening, but took a whole family at once." I was baptized," she said, with my brothers Absalom and Beulah, and my sisters Lizzie and Annmeralda. We was five, and we was done by Parson Tinkler. I mind me I was right plaized, for I made out I had left my sins behind me, and mother she 'a gav us suet dumplings and sugar with our baked apples.

Once I asked Mrs. Swyney whether she thought the girls of the present day better off than the maidens of her own time. "Nay, madam," was her reply, "they get higher wage than ever I did, 'tis true; but then," she added severely, "they're so lifted up with pride that there's mony a one as clems her belly to embellish her back. Now, there's my great niece Sarah," she added with acrimony; "she's up in a balloon of pride, and her stomach is a-puffed up as high as a fancy puffler pigeon when she goes to church in her feathers and 'er furbelows or walks with her Joe on Sundays. They dus but little work, the wenches, now. When my brother Beulah was but a shaver they made him crow-boy to Farmer Smout, and I was only a shred of a maid when I worked in Squire Forester's gang at weeding and such like. We used oftentimes, continued the old lady, "to see the old gentleman ride out in scarlet with a poweration of gay ladies. The quality then knew 'ow to behave theirselves." After that, my old friend continued, "I went to work at the Downes farm. Harvest time was very different to what it is now. In them days there was brewing and baking. Why, us used to bake eight bushels in a day when us 'ad the thirty Welshmen for the mowing as slept in the barn, and the maister used to kill a sheep every day, and there was nought but the bones left come candle time."

In the last century and even up to the twenties in this I have been told by Mrs. Swyney that girls who got "overseen"-in other words, who had lost

their good name-had to pay penance in church. "I mind me,' my old friend once told me," of a certain Betty Beaman. She and I used to meet at the pump when us did the washing for Farmer Smout. One day as I was holding the pail and she was a-pumping in 'er burst into tears, for 'er was a-thinking, poor crittur, of 'er young days. 'Er said, Sally, I bain't what I was, and never shall be, afore I paid penance. That's many a year agone, but standin' up in that there white sheet 'a took something out of me that'll never cum back. The spirit left me, and ever sin', though I can eat my wittles regler, somehow I 'ave a-lived like in the dust. Sure, I 'opes when I goes as some un will 'elp the good Lord to misremember all about me.

My old friend on one occasion after a christening refused to partake not "wisely but too well." Owing to this a quarrel sprang up. The host took off his stockings, and flinging the empty bottles against the door swore that nobody should walk out but bare-footed and over the broken glass. Farmer Tudor, however, being a man of mettle, jumped up and declared that "he liked good-fellowship, but wud not get drunk for any man. As he spoke he seized his opportunity, slipped out of his chair, dashed out of the room, and leaped on his hill pony, and away he went. A general howl of execration followed his exit, and one big hulking fellow, by name Enoch Lindop, tottered on to his feet and swore he would do for the mean-spirited milksop." Thus saying he took up from a corner a heavy hunting whip with an iron handle, and leading out his big gray mare, rode after my poor friend in hot pursuit. A terrible chase took place over hill and down rocky lanes, with the clear moonlight shining overhead.

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The plucky mountain pony galloped like a deer, while the powerful gray followed close at its heels, and the quiet night rang with the curses of its rider and his vows of vengeance. Never," said my old friend, had I such a desperate run with the Wheatland hounds, for I knew I was riding for my life. Lindop was drunk-not drunk enough to tumble off, but drunk enough to kill me in his blind and masterful rage. I felt like a hunted hare. Happily at last I reached the hill above Wenlock. Then I knew I was safe, for the pony was as sure-footed as a cat, and I let him come down full speed and dashed up the High Street with a wild clatter that brought a night-cap or two to the closed windows. I was just in time to jump off my little beast, rush up the covered passage that led to my house, enter the door, and lock it securely after me. Through the window I saw the brutal Lindop lash poor Bob with a yell of fury. A second later and I beheld my little steed tear wildly down the street in one direction and my enemy at equal speed disappear down the other."

Dr. Brookes, one of our leading burgesses, has told me that when he was elected an hereditary burgess he was requested during the dinner at the Raven Hotel to drink the old accus. tomed toast out of the mace- Prosperation to the Corporation."

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He, however, declined to do so, as he was told that he must empty the silver cup.

Upon this one of the leading officials present arose and said, "Doctor, Doctor, don't disgrace yourself."

I have been told that in the early part of the century the people of Wenlock were a very turbulent, hot-headed race. The men were very big, strong, and prone to drink and fight. "We mightn't ha' been lords then," an old man once said to me, "but we all thought as it was our birthright to get drunk when us was so minded, so long as us did it respectable, as well as to sell our votes if us did that honest. But parsons then they warn't the mighty hunters after wice as they be now. Then they was very merciful to human natur', knowin' as 'ow human natur' is wery frail, remarkably so." In those wild old days each candidate would

bring to the poll a hundred followers; "beer wud run like water, and every man wud have a turn to, and many were the broken heads."

When "old Squire Forester" of Willey was elected he made at once the shortest and most popular speech on record. After hearing that he was returned he went to the window of the Raven Inn and thus addressed his constituents: "Men of Wenlock, God save the King, says I, and prosperation to the Corporation." After that he closed the window and retired amid thunders of applause.

The temperance movement did not in early days meet with the success it deserved at Wenlock. A sermon once preached to further its views was highly resented. A member of the congregation jumped up in the middle of the discourse and said, "There ain't none such words in the Bible." The clergyman repeated his statement, upon which the man who had interrupted him said, "Get down from the pulpit and make room for a better man." The clerk, the sexton, and the churchwarden were sent to eject the offender, but the disputant unfortunately possessed colossal strength, and soon laid low his three assailants. Then the congregation arose, some of them taking one side, some the other, and a free fight ensued. Windows were smashed in the town, and it was with great difficulty that the temperance minister was escorted safely home. The mob eventually seized the stocks, and amid much excitement consigned that ancient implement of punishment to a limekiln, where it was burned amid great cheering. In order to punish the offenders a new set of stocks was made, on wheels, and the last man who was put in them was known as Snailey"-a Broseley man who had taken part in the foregoing disturbance. According to the minute book of the magistrates of Much Wenlock he was sentenced by them in June 1852. The constables, delighted with the fact that they could move the culprit about at will, dragged him round the town. The people, however, did not side with law and order, but showed themselves very friendly to the prisoner, and when the officials stopped to rest themselves took the opportunity of cheering their com

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her. One of the officials who went up to inspect the corpse declared it was a loathsome sight. Three dogs and four cats rested on the poor body, and the face fair swarmed black wid fleas."

Eventually, however, the devil got his own, and Nanny came to a tragic end. She was murdered in her sixty-ninth year, in September 1857, by her lodger Wright, a young man from Baschurch, for whom, it is said, she had conceived an unholy passion, and who killed her, it is alleged, to escape from her spiritual thraldom.

During the trial the judge said to him, "Prisoner, what have you got to say in your defence?" Wright replied, ""Tis no use my speaking, for 'tis all on one side, like the Bridgnorth election; you be all agin me." Wright was sentenced to death, but recommended to mercy by the jury, and eventually transported for life.

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Dr. Brookes has told me that he was one of the party who went with the chief constable to Nanny's house when they heard that she was murdered. They found the wretched sorceress lying with her head on the first steps of her staircase, her long hair hanging about her shoulders in mats, clotted with blood. One of her dogs, her sole mourner, was howling piteously by her side. Nanny kept innumerable cats and many dogs. "The house foul reeked of cats," I was told, and one, a gray sheeny Tom, was known by the evil name of Hell-Blaw." She kept also toads in a box, and called unto her azgals (lizards) from the garden." After her death wheelbarrows full of letters were found in the cottage, which had been written consulting her on various matters, and some of them were said to have been penned by most "respectable people.' These notes, with her books, some of which last were MSS., were written in the "Devil's tongue," and "in various speeches." They were all burned, by order of the mayor, in the yard of the Talbot Inn, before all the townsfolk of Wenlock.

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I once expressed my keen regret to an old man who had been present on this occasion at the destruction of the witch's library. For this display of what he considered evil curiosity I was rebuked. "Mam," he said severely,

"no clean-livered woman could have perused them books." ." Such was the horror Nanny inspired that I have been told the men who found her put her into her coffin "in any how," for, it was explained to me, "we was terrible afeared of the curse that might come to us if we was but touched by witch's blood."

Another tragedy a little earlier is recorded in the annals of Wenlock. The story is told of a keeper of Mr. Benson's of Lutwyche, by name Corfield. He was sitting one day behind a yew tree, eating his dinner, when some one who had a grudge against him approached him from behind and shot him. The poor fellow knew from the first that he was mortally wounded, but struggled home, crawling back on his hands and knees, gasping for breath and streaming with blood. When his wife and family pressed him to say who was the murderer, he either did not know or could not recall the name, for all he said between his gasps was, "The villain's done for me! the villain's done for me!"

Of course the whole country was in a state of uproar, and numerous arrests were made. Among others a certain Thomas was taken up, who went by the nickname of "Black Joe." He was strongly suspected of having "done for poor Corfield." The murder had been committed after heavy rain, and the ground at the time was very soft. of the chief means of identifying the criminal was by the boot mark, which, owing to the state of the weather, had been very clearly defined in the sticky red clay.

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Unfortunately very zealous people do not always act with commensurate wisdom, and the head of the police in his anxiety to convict the prisoner took a boot of Black Joe's and laid it on the already made footprint, declaring as he did so that it fitted like a glove."

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At the subsequent trial the prisoner was acquitted, mainly because of this incident, although he was generally believed to have been the murderer. On hearing that the jury brought in a verdict of "Not guilty" Black Joe stood up in court and said, after testifying to his innocence, "May the Devil catch me if I have done this foul deed !"