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Only 75 Copies of this Large-Paper Edition 
 have been printed 
 
 This is No. 
 
 3S 
 
asiefoitrja! of 0Xii Cimrsl 
 
PRINTED !1Y 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NF,\V STREET SQUARE 
 
 LONDON 
 
RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 HISTORICAL, SOCIAL, POLITICAL, SPORTING 
 AND AGRICULTURAL 
 
 J. KERSLEY FOWLER ('RUSTICUS') 
 
 formerly of the Prel-)endal Farm, Aylesbury 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 'ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE* AND ' RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD COUNTRY LIFE* 
 
 * How strange are the tricks of memory, which after a hazy dream about the 
 most important events of a man's life, religiously preserves the merest trifles ! 
 And how very unpleasant to meet oneself thirty years younger! ' — Life of Bukton 
 
 * When you say to a well-known man, " You ought to write your memoirs," 
 it is a polite way of giving him to understand that he is no longer fit for any- 
 thing else. Still people continue to publish their reminiscences, because a man 
 likes to call up his souvenirs, and because, as a result of evoking them for himself, 
 the moment comes when he is seized by a desire to communicate them to his 
 contemporaries' — Henri Rochefort 
 
 WITH NINE ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LONDON 
 
 CHATTO & W INDUS 
 
 1898 
 
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 LORD ROTHSCHILD 
 
 "LORD-LIEUTENANT OK BUCKS 
 
 FROM WHOM AND HIS FAMILY BOTH ABROAD AND AT HOME 
 
 I HAVE RECEIVED MANY ACTS OF KINDNESS 
 
 AND COURTESY 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The great success of my two former books, ' Echoes 
 of Old County Life ' (E. Arnold), and ' Recollec- 
 tions of Old Country Life' (Longmans), with the 
 generous and unstinted praise accorded to them by 
 nearly all the London and Provincial press, has 
 emboldened me to bring out another volume, which 
 I have called ' Records of Old Times.' This will 
 complete a Trilogy that I am vain enough to 
 believe will prove agreeable to my former readers, 
 comprehending, as it does, a series of reminiscences 
 of interesting events in which I have been a moving 
 centre, as well as ' Old Records ' which I have 
 been enabled to glean in my researches relating to 
 Buckinghamshire and the neighbouring counties. 
 In my first volume I ventured to remark ' that these 
 reminiscences differ from others that have hitherto 
 been published ... as being a fair representation 
 
viii RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 of middle class life of one who, in the course of 
 a busy career, had met many famous people, and 
 truthfully recorded what he remembers about them.' 
 In the present volume I have somewhat enlarged 
 on the subject, by adding interesting facts of past 
 history, more especially the history of my native 
 county and the old town of Aylesbury, where I was 
 born, and where I lived for more than sixty years. 
 This is a long period to recall, but being possessed 
 of a vivid memory, it has not been difficult for me 
 to relate circumstances but little known to the 
 present generation, many of which, I may venture 
 to say, are calculated to be of use and guidance in 
 the future. My records of Turnpike gates and 
 their keepers ; Posting and Post-horses, with a 
 description of the ' post-horse duty,' and how that 
 vexatious impost was raised and collected ; of 
 old inns and coaching, with the rise of the present 
 so-called hotels and the huge caravanserais which 
 are now prevalent in our great Metropolis, as well 
 as in our seaside resorts and great manufacturing 
 towns ; the development of modern systems of 
 agriculture, and of agricultural exhibitions, abroad 
 and at home ; of Steeple-chasing and other sports, 
 with early Parliamentary and social records, comprise 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 a series of subjects which, I conceive, cannot fail to 
 interest various classes of my readers. Possibly I 
 may sometimes have travelled over the ground 
 covered in former volumes. If I have, I apologise. 
 When, however, that occurs, it is traceable, on my 
 part, to a desire to clearly elucidate some striking 
 event, for the perfect comprehension of which a note 
 or two of repetition would be necessary. 
 
 I must tender my best thanks to Lord Rothschild 
 for his kindness in permitting me to dedicate this 
 book to him ; and I but express my own feeling and 
 that of the public in stating how much the great world 
 is indebted to the present and past three generations 
 of his family for their integrity in business, their 
 well-known charity and hospitality, with the attention 
 they have shown to the wants and requirements of 
 their tenantry, and of Agriculture in general, as well 
 as the performance, by the present head of the 
 house, of his important duties as Lord- Lieutenant of 
 Bucks. 
 
 Although Lord Rothschild has been in occupa- 
 tion of Tring Park only a few years, he has so 
 much altered and beautified its interior as to make 
 it a home fit for a nobleman of such taste as he 
 possesses. For many years the house was occupied 
 
X RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 by the Rev. I. Williams, who held it under the 
 trustees of Mr. Kaye, and at his decease the 
 mansion and large estates were sold by auction. 
 The eldest son of Mr. Williams was very desirous 
 of purchasing it, but at the auction Lord Rothschild 
 became the purchaser at something approaching 
 250,000/., the timber, which was very extensive, 
 being taken at a valuation. The enclosed deer 
 park makes a great addition to the property, and 
 its easy access to London is of much consequence 
 to the occupier. From several sources, especially 
 from a description given in a number of ' Country 
 Life ' of June 5, 1897, I find that the manor of Tring 
 (of the famed 'Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe') was 
 granted to Earl Eustace by William the Conqueror, 
 from whom it descended to Matilda, wife of King 
 Stephen. It then became the property of the 
 Abbot of Feversham, from whom it passed to 
 Edward III., who, in exchange, granted it to the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, in whose possession it 
 remained till Henry VIII., when plundering the 
 revenues of the Church, vested the property in the 
 Crown. The manor remained a Royal possession 
 till the time of Charles I., who presented it to 
 his Queen, Henrietta Maria. Oliver Cromwell, 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 however, confiscated it to the Commonwealth, and 
 it is recorded that a private gentleman again pur- 
 chased the property and presented it to Charles 1 1. 
 after the Restoration. I believe the King occasion- 
 ally resided at Tring Mansion, which probably gave 
 rise to the report that Nell Gwynne was once the 
 possessor. The estate then became the property 
 of Mr. Henry Guy, who was Clerk to the Treasury 
 for four reigns. He built the chief part of the 
 present mansion. In the end it belonged to Sir 
 Drummond Smith, from whom it passed to Mr. 
 Kaye, who was in the silk trade, and, I believe, 
 connected with David Evans & Co. Mr. Kaye, 
 during the agricultural depression in the early 
 forties, established considerable silk factories at 
 Aylesbury and Tring, in order to find employment 
 for the agricultural poor. The Aylesbury factory has 
 been closed for some years, but the present Tring 
 factory is continued by Lord Rothschild's philan- 
 thropy, and still finds employment for many. The 
 house and park closely adjoin the little market town of 
 Tring, and the members of the local agricultural 
 association have the privilege granted them of hold- 
 ing their annual show in the park, the denizens of 
 which, acclimatised, and carefully attended to by the 
 
xii RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 Hon. Walter Rothschild, the eldest son, always excite 
 great interest ; there are to be seen zebras, kangaroos, 
 emus, tortoises, and other curious specimens of 
 foreign countries, which seem to progress very well 
 in their new surroundings. 
 
 My thanks are also due to my old friend Mr. 
 Samuel Glen Payne, and his talented wife, for their 
 permission to use the excellent photographs of 
 mansions, churches, and other places of note to 
 illustrate the book. In addition, I have to thank 
 those who have furnished me with memoranda in 
 explanation of the incidents mentioned. 
 
 The Old House, Hampton-on-Thames, 
 Jmmary 1898. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The county of Bucks — The Chiltern Hills — Vale of Aylesbury — 
 Valley of the Thames — North of the county : Valley of the 
 Ouse — ' The classic groves of Stowe ' — ' Cymbeline ' — An 
 American's opinion — ' Why you English people so deeply love 
 your country' — -White Leaf Cross — Hughenden — Benjamin 
 Disraeli — 'Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe' — The making of 
 England^ — Anne Boleyn, ' The Fair Maid of Aylesbury ' 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Turnpikes and their keepers — Origin of turnpike trusts — General 
 rate of tolls — Mr. Weller's opinion of pike men — A turnpike 
 letting — 'Pikers 'and their methods — Sharp practice — Lessees 
 of tolls — Feasting after the fray — Management of roads . 13 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Early recollections of posting — Post-horse duty — The old inns 
 and posting-houses — Collection of the duty — Manners and 
 customs of travellers who posted — Cost — Post-horse Farmers 
 — Shillibeer, the well-known Undertaker — Abolition of the 
 duty 23 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Eton Montem — Customs — Their origin — Collecting salt — 
 Waving the flag on the Mount ad Montem — Salt bearers — 
 The ' Windmill ' Inn— Mr. Botham— The traffic on the Great 
 Western road — Royalty — The Playing Fields— Dr. Goodall 
 — Dinton . , . . 30 
 
xiv RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Early recollections of the Derby — Lord Berners and Phosphorus 
 in 1837 — Caravan and Lord Suffield — My first Derby — 
 Bloomsbury's year, 1839 — My costume — Heavy snowstorm 
 on Oak-apple Day, May 29 — Opening of the London and 
 South-Western Railway from Nine Elms — ' No more trains ! ' 
 — Cab to Kingston — A borrowed ride on a post-chaise — 
 ' Whip behind ! ' — A mad rush, but in time to see the finish 
 • — Amato's victory — From Aylesbury to Epsom on horseback 
 in 1 84 1 — Well-named Little Wonder : won with 40 to i 
 against him — The Queen and Prince Albert present — 
 Running Rein — Daniel O'Rourke — My folly .... 38 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Recollections of the Cup Day at Ascot — My ride from home — 
 The Queen, Prince Consort, and the Emperor of Russia : 
 interesting conversation — The Countess of Albemarle's 
 carriage — The Earl, Masterof the Horse, wins with his son of 
 Defence, beating Attila — Delight of the crowd — The Emperor's 
 promise to present the Ascot Cup in future — Establishment 
 of the Cassarewitch Stakes — The Defence colt called the 
 Emperor — Wins the Vase the following year — Graceful act of 
 the Earl ; presents the Vase to her Majesty the Queen, and 
 the horse to the Czar — My next ' Ascot '—Dead-heat between 
 Buckstone and Tim Whififler 51 
 
 CHAPTER Vn 
 
 Parliamentary elections — Origin of the representation of the 
 people — Alfred the Great and the Witanagemot — Ancient 
 franchises — The Potwaller — Borough of Aylesbury^Addition 
 of ' The Hundreds ' — John Webb, ninety-six years old, the 
 last of the Potwallers — Customs at the nomination — Dinners 
 — Conveyances — Duration of polling period — A candidate's 
 ' little bill ' — The poll — The voters' dinners : daily bill of fare 
 ^General Election of 1784 — Curious incident — The great 
 Aylesbury case, Ashby v. White — Its effect .... 56 
 
,r^ 
 
 CONTENTS XV 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 i'AGE! 
 
 An eccentric country gentleman — Egyptologist and astronomer 
 — Singular political career — Rural pursuits — His marriages — 
 Establishment of prize gooseberry shows — Practices of ex- 
 hibitors — Names of noted gooseberries — J as. Carter, landlord 
 of the 'Bugle' Inn — Teetotal festivities — Dr. Lee in exce/sis — 
 Elihu Burritt — Drunken orgies of the visitors to the Teetotal 
 banquets — The historic career of the Lee family — Their 
 remarkable influence — Admiral Smyth — Old Wiggs, the 
 parish clerk — '^-Edes Hartwellianae' — The museum — Hartwell 
 House, the seven years' residence of Louis XVIIL . . 73 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A, prize farm — A Yankee fellow traveller — American and Englisli 
 farmers compared — Turning the tables — An English farmer's 
 bill of fare — A farmer's ' pretty turn-out ' — Discomfiture of 
 the Professor — Wheat-growing in England and the United 
 States — The Professor's apology 89 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Hereford cattle — Early history of the breed — Report of the United 
 States Government — Grazing capabilities — Quality of beef — 
 Curious anecdote — Mr. Westcar, of Creslow — Foundation of 
 the Smithfield Club — Introduction of the breed into the Mid- 
 lands — Duke of Bedford — Lord Berners — Remarkable cattle 
 — Great value of ' Hereford ' beef at Christmas — Beauty of 
 the animals — Colour, grandeur, and carriage — General apti- 
 tude to fatten 95 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Old inns — Politics— Inn signs and their origin — Posting and 
 coaching — The 'White Hart' at Aylesbury — The extensive 
 gardens, the offices, and appointments of the 'White Hart' 
 • — County importance of the grand old inn — Names of the 
 rooms — The 'Old Bell' in Holborn— Customs of the dinner- 
 table — To Drury Lane Theatre after dinner — Other old inns 
 — Rise of the modern hotel — Bacon's Hotel, Great Queen 
 Street — Railway hotels — Present managers and past pro- 
 prietors contrasted .105 
 
 a 
 
 ^' 
 
xvi RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 I'ACiE 
 
 News of the Battle of Waterloo — Difficulty and delay in getting 
 news at the beginning of the centur)' — The old Winslow 
 coach — ' The Dairy Maid ' — Report of the great battle 
 brought to my father — Doubts of its authenticity — Ringing the 
 church bells — Indignation of the vicar — Ultimate triumph of 
 my father — Then and now contrasted — ' Our own corre- 
 spondent ' . . . . . . . . . . 1 20 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A famous hunting mare — The purchase : her infirmity, her great 
 beauty, and her matchless performances — Her docility and 
 extraordinary pace— Jem Mason — Harborough Brown — The 
 Creslow Brook — The beauty of the Vale of Aylesbury as a 
 hunting country — Famous run after a bag fox with Lord 
 Lonsdale's hounds — Captain Barlow — Lord Coventry — The 
 great water jump over the Broughton line of countr>' with the 
 'Varsity men — Accident to the mare — Partial recovery— Put 
 to the stud — Sudden death — Death of her foal by Hungerford 
 at four years old, and an end of the great huntress . . 1 24 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Curious instance of life insurance — X, a specially fortunate specu- 
 lator in freehold property — His remarkable purchase of life in- 
 terest of a younger son of a peer — Death of the earl, of the heir, 
 with other deaths — The younger son heir to the earldom and 
 50,000/. a year — Enormous windfall to X — Hisnoblegenerosity 
 to the impecunious peer — His attempt to insure his life — Un- 
 warrantable refusal to appear before the company's doctor — 
 Sudden withdrawal of proposal by X — The end of X's career 137 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 The Date Coffee Company — Discovery of the value of the date as 
 an infusion equal to the best coffee — Successful flotation — 
 Establishment of the patent — Manufacture of date coffee at 
 Kurrachee in India — The Imaum of Muscat — Rapid increase 
 in the consumption — Handsome profits — The French patent 
 and its sale — Flotation of German company — Sudden collapse 
 
CONTENTS xvii 
 
 of the sale of the article through the action of Mr. Gladstone, 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer— The Date Coffee Company 
 in the Law Courts— Final break-up of a company whose 5/. 
 shares had for some time been quoted at Till- • • -145 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Capital punishments — Crimes of every description that were 
 punishable by death — Numbers at every assize left for execu- 
 tion — Banks and the two Cribbs for horse-steaUng — Sheep- 
 stealers — The new drop — Baron Garrow — A hanging judge 
 — The riots in 1832 — John Thompson at Maidstone — Instance 
 of superstitious belief in the charm of the dead hand — Mislaid 
 death warrant found, and, years after sentence, woman taken 
 from wash-tub and hung 155 
 
 CHAPTER XVn 
 
 Witchcraft — Its extraordinary superstitions — Biblical authorities 
 — Joan of Arc — The Puritans — Henry VIII. — Sir Matthew 
 Hale — Ducking at Castle Hedingham — Ruth Osborne 
 drowned at Gubblecote — Verdict of murder — Conviction and 
 execution of Colley — Susanna Hannock at Wingrove weighed 
 against the church Bible — Visit of the Fiery Drake to Ayles- 
 bury Gaol — Prognostication before the assizes of death 
 sentences 163 
 
 CHAPTER XVIH 
 
 Early steeplechasing — Qualities of a good steeplechaser — St. 
 Albans in 1833-34 — Aylesbury — Moderate stakes — The rise 
 and temporary fall of the Aylesbury meeting — Young ' Oxford' 
 at Aylesbury vice Banbury abandoned — A tremendous line of 
 country — Twice across eighteen feet of naked water and over 
 a turnpike road — ' Grief — Well-known cross-country gentle- 
 men riders at Aylesbury — Their hardihood and pluck — A cruel 
 course and unjumpable fence — A carefully laid-out line at 
 Aylesbury — Abuses and their reform — A great meeting — 
 H R.H. the Prince of Wales prevented from being present 
 — A defaulting official — The late Earl of Darnley — Reminis- 
 cences of 'Varsity steeplechasing — Assumed names of the 
 riders — The disguise stripped off by 'Bell's Life' — Bishop 
 Wilberforce and the steeplechases 169 
 
xvlii RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 tAC.E. 
 
 History of a railway — Opening of the London and Birmingham, 
 now the London and North-Western — The Buckinghatnshire 
 — George Stephenson and his son Robert — The Aylesbury — • 
 Messrs. Brydone and Rummens — Marquis of Chandos — Mr. 
 Stewart, secretary to London and North-Western — Unfair 
 opposition of landowner — Contracts and theireffect — Directors' 
 advances — The Great Western — The Metropolitan — Pur- 
 chase of the A and B line — Shameful treatment of the original 
 directors — Their just claims ignored — The Manchester, 
 Sheffield, and Lincolnshire (Great Central) . . . .186 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Altona — Judge in agricultural department at the great Schleswig- 
 Holstein Exhibition — My fellow jurors — The officials' utter 
 ignorance of ' management ' — Chaos — Assisted by the English 
 exhibitors, orderly arrangement effected — Awards — Trials of 
 implements : difficulties that had to be removed — Thrashing- 
 machines : Walter Wood his own driver — He wins the first 
 prize — Horticultural Show at Hamburgh — The success of the 
 English — Liverpool grapes win against all comers — Shabby 
 treatment of the judge — Nonpayment of services and out-of- 
 pocket expenses — Journey home — Borrowing money to get 
 there — Opinion of foreign agriculture — The all-round 
 superiority of English methods ...... 196 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 Amsterdam — Appointed a judge at the great Exhibition — The 
 journey thither — The Poultry Show — My son Robert wins the 
 gold medals for poultry and waterfowl — Extraordinary weight 
 of prize birds — Paul Potter's bull — 'A wretch' of a beast — 
 Curious facts in heredity — The famous bull as a picture — 
 Description — The Alderney Bull, by James Ward, R.A. 
 ■ — ' Duke of Connaught' — Trotting matches — Dutch cattle — 
 Milk production and bacon — Tranquil beauty of the Low 
 Countries — The Dutch ; their thrift, cleanliness, and industr>' 
 — The bulb-farms at Haarlem 204 
 
CONTENTS xix 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The myths and monastic legends of Ruckinghamshire — St. 
 Osyth — Rip Van Winkle and the Seven Sleepers — The be- 
 heading and miraculous restoration of St. Osyth — The Nun's 
 Wood and Fountain — Existing local traditions — Sacred wells 
 — ' The Holy Touch' — Hartwell and Dr. Lee . . .213 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 Poultry rearing for profit — Statistics of imports — Breeds that 
 should be adopted — Records of exhibition birds — Major- 
 General Hassard — Pheasant-rearing and the production of 
 pheasants' eggs as a profitable agricultural industry — Remark- 
 able statistics — Prices of eggs — Names of noted dealers — 
 Accounts of profit and loss — Numbers of eggs laid and young 
 pheasants reared — Expenditure on the establishment of a 
 pheasant farm . . . . 220 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 The homing instinct — Andre's pigeons — Mr. Tegetmeier — 
 Curious instances of homing instinct in the dog — Quaint epi- 
 taph — The agricultural labourer — Dialects — The agricultural 
 labourer's rustic speech — His humour— The worth and native 
 shrewdness of his character — His industry — Wages and the 
 cheap loaf — Old times and new — Bounties on foreign grown 
 sugar — The growth of flax and hemp — A chance for English 
 agriculture — ' The backbone of Old England ' . . . 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Ellesborough Church and the Vale of Ayles- 
 bury, SHOWING THE ANCIENT ROM ANO-BRITISH 
 
 Road, the Icknield Way, a.d. 220 . . Frontispiece 
 
 Lord Rothschild's House, Tring Park . . to face p. x 
 
 Great Kimble Village and Church, with the 
 
 Icknield Way „ 4 
 
 Whiteleaf Cross — formed by the Saxons to 
 Commemorate their final Victory over 
 the Danes, a.d. 570 „ 6 
 
 Dinton Hall, the Seat of Colonel Goodall ; 
 formerly the Residence of Simon Mayne, 
 the Regicide „ 34 
 
 Hartwell House, the Residence of Colonel 
 E. Dyke-Lee; occupied, whilst in Exile, 
 BY Louis the Eighteenth from 1807 to 1814 „ 74 
 
 Steepi.e-chase, Old Style, Aylesbury, 18471 
 Steeple-chase, New Style, Lingfield, 1897) 
 
 170 
 'The Young Bull,' by Paul Potter . . „ 206 
 
RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The county of Bucks — The Chiltern Hills — Vale of Aylesbury — Valley 
 of the Thames — North of the county : Valley of the Ouse — ' The 
 classic groves of Stowe' — ' Cymbeline' — An American's opinion — 
 'Why you English people so deeply love your country' — White 
 Leaf Cross — Hughenden — Benjamin Disraeli — 'Tring, Wing, and 
 Ivinghoe' — The making of England — Anne Boleyn, 'The Fair 
 Maid of Aylesbury.' 
 
 ' England, with all thy faults, I love thee still — my country.' 
 
 Once more am I tempted to record my recollec- 
 tions of old England, as also, here and there, of 
 certain other countries whereof I have some know- 
 ledge, and in the characters of whose great 
 men I have taken unusual interest. In my former 
 volumes I have given a somewhat disjointed record 
 of my personal experiences of some interesting 
 characters, chiefly from my native county — men of 
 all classes with whom I have been associated ; and 
 I may be thought too enthusiastic in my love of the 
 ' great historic county of Bucks,' so aptly named by 
 one of her most distinguished sons, Benjamin 
 Disraeli, who, although not born in the county, 
 spent all his early boyhood and his most famous 
 
 B 
 
2 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 manhood at his father's house at Bradenham, near 
 High Wycombe, and at Hughenden, which 
 adjoins the former place. These villages are 
 situated in the most picturesque parts of the ' beech- 
 clad Chilterns,' embedded in the umbrageous 
 shelter of the beech trees, truly ' recubans sub 
 tegunne fagi.' Much as I have travelled over 
 Europe, and nearly the whole of the United 
 Kingdom, I have repeatedly said that nowhere 
 can be found more perfect sylvan scenery than 
 that along the Chiltern Hills, or more real pastoral 
 beauty than the Vale of Aylesbury, or more 
 lovely views than those in the Valley of the 
 Thames, from Henley to Maidenhead. Nor should 
 the north of the county be despised. The Valley 
 of the Ouse, the classic groves of Stowe, the 
 woodlands around the Claydons, with the breezy 
 heights of Brill, are all admirable. 
 
 But it is with the country about the Chiltern 
 Hills I am tempted most to dwell, and the recent 
 revival by Sir Henry Irving at the Lyceum 
 Theatre of that most delightful play of Shakespeare, 
 ' Cymbeline,' with the delineation of everything 
 that is lovable, womanly, and charming in Imogen, 
 has touched a chord which impels me to dwell on 
 that interesting district. This part of the county is 
 but little known ; yet it is here that the two rural 
 villages of Great and Little Kimble are situated, at 
 the foot of the highest part of the Chiltern range, 
 and here most undoubtedly dwelt the British King 
 Cymbeline, or Kimbeline, with the ' fair Imogen ' 
 
CYMBELINE AND IMOGEN 3 
 
 — all around the country is full of ancient 
 British earthworks. It is generally believed that a 
 deep and lovely indentation in the Chalk Hills is 
 the spot where Cymbeline and his Court lived. 
 This portion of the hill is covered with a deliciously 
 short velvety sward, and verifies properly the 
 modern appellation of ' Velvet Lawn.' On its east 
 side rises abruptly a wonderfully perfect British 
 camp, with a somewhat deep fosse or ditch 
 thoroughly enclosing it ; and rising- sheer from the 
 base is one of the most beautifully shaped conical 
 hills on the whole Chalk range, whilst on the top 
 are two additional smaller camps, and within a 
 quarter of a mile towers the highest of the Chilterns, 
 called ' Coombe Hill ' ; this is about 900 feet above 
 the sea, and commands a view of the country for a 
 distance of nearly thirty miles. From its summit 
 can be seen to the north and west portions of the 
 counties of Warwick, Gloucester, Northampton, 
 Oxford, Bedford, Hertford, Berkshire, and Wilt- 
 shire ; and to the south Middlesex and the Surrey 
 hills, with the Crystal Palace clearly visible. The 
 most fertile part of Bucks lies at its foot, with the 
 county town of Aylesbury. 
 
 The ' yEgilsbireg ' of the Saxons, surmounted 
 by its fine old twelfth-century church in the centre 
 of the vale to which it gives its name — I have not 
 the power to describe the beauties of this splendid 
 inland view. Some years ago from this spot I was 
 showing a young American gentleman, who was 
 visiting me, the beauties of this neighbourhood, with 
 
 B 2 
 
4 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 the country divided by hedgerows and planted with 
 timber-trees, villages and parish churches rising here 
 and there, and dotted with farm-houses and cottages, 
 the river Thame meandering through the rich 
 pastures, till it reaches the market town of that 
 name, where it becomes a tolerably broad stream, 
 falling into the Isis at Dorchester in Oxfordshire, the 
 I sis having received the Cherwell, flowing from Ban- 
 bury to Oxford, and thus forming the Thame-Isis, 
 the Tamesis, or Thames, and becoming at London 
 Bridge the richest laden and most noted river in 
 the world. This unique view caused my friend to 
 exclaim, ' Now I see why you English people so 
 deeply love your country.' I replied : ' Yes, what 
 you perceive has taken us nearly 2,000 years to 
 create.' I then pointed out to him that at our feet 
 lay the two little villages of Great and Little 
 Kimble, and that there was the residence of the 
 famed British King ' Kunobelin,' the ' Cunobelinus' 
 of the Romans, and the ' Cymbeline ' of the 
 immortal Shakespeare, and that in the thickly 
 wooded slopes of these hills had lived that most 
 lovely woman of all the great poet's creation, ' the 
 gentle Imogen.' We descended from our coign of 
 vantage, and seated ourselves on the camp, still 
 called by the country people ' Linus' Camp.' 
 Looking to the side of the hill — covered thickly, 
 and almost impenetrably with ancient box trees, 
 stretching for miles — the trees are supposed to 
 be the successors of former denizens of the 
 slopes, and to have existed for many centuries. 
 
THE ICKNIELD WAY 5 
 
 These evergreen woods are extremely beautiful, and 
 are interspersed occasionally with fine beech trees ; 
 the woods reach down to the two Kimbles, and 
 the village of Ellesborough, or Ethelburga. I 
 showed him that important British road — the 
 ' Icknield Way,' the ' Via Iceni ' of the Romans — 
 the road to the Iceni of Boadicea, that great queen 
 of a noble race, who was struck down, and, it is 
 said, killed at the battle with the Roman legions 
 near St. Albans. This road commences at Devizes 
 in Wiltshire, continuing its route to the Thames, 
 which it crosses at Wallingford, or Watlingford, 
 to the litde town of Watlington, then to Princes 
 Risborough — once the residence of the Black Prince 
 — along the foot of the Chiltern range to Dun- 
 stable, where it crosses or joins the main Roman 
 road to the north — the ' Watling Street ' of these 
 pioneers of civilisation still bearing the same 
 name in the City of London — and on by Tow- 
 cester to Chester. The Icknield Way con- 
 tinues across the kingdom to St. Albans — the 
 ' Verulamium ' of the Romans, whose glorious 
 Norman Abbey, now a cathedral, is largely 
 built of Roman bricks from that warlike station. 
 To our rear, amongst the dense mass of beech trees, 
 lies Hughenden, which is about seven miles distant, 
 the residence of the great political chief, the late 
 Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, K.G., from 
 whose residence, he once told me, while I was 
 visiting him, that Simon de Montfort went to 
 compel King John to sign Magna Charta at 
 
6 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 Runnymede near Ankerwyke on the Thames ; and 
 about two miles away is Hampden House, the birth- 
 place and grave of the patriot, John Hampden, 
 of whose ancestor it is recorded — 
 
 Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe, 
 Three churches all in a row ; 
 These Manors Hampden did forego 
 For striking the Black Prince a blow, 
 And glad he did escape so. 
 
 Probably this was from some hasty words with the 
 renowned Black Prince, who was Hampden's neigh- 
 bour, whilst the Prince was at Princes Risborough. 
 As my visitor and myself were seated on this 
 ancient camp, within three miles on our left I 
 described Whiteleaf Cross, a noble relic of the 
 Saxons, cut out on the hill side of one of the 
 highest of the Chiltern rano;e, the turf being re- 
 moved, and thus showing the chalk beneath. The 
 cross, of great size, stands upon a huge triangular 
 base and is seen for many miles, being clearly visible 
 at O.xford, nearly twenty miles distant. This re- 
 markable work was formed by the Saxons about 
 the year a.d. 570, to commemorate their last great 
 victory over the Danes. On the low-lying lands 
 at its base is ' Bledlow,' or Bloody Plain, which 
 adjoins Horsenden, the residence of Horsa, the 
 son of Woden, and whose son ' Wiglif ' commanded 
 the Saxons ; no doubt ' Whiteleaf ' is a corruption 
 of this name. Looking ahead is Dinton, the 
 residence of Simon Mayne, the regicide in the 
 time of Charles I., and adjoining is the village of 
 
HARTWELL 7 
 
 Hartwell, for seven years the home of Louis XVI 1 1, 
 and his Court after their escape from France under 
 the first Napoleon. If this central part of Bucks is 
 historical, so is the northern part, as it contains the 
 town of Buckinoham, which afives its name to the 
 county ; but it appears that it never attained to the 
 dignity of the county town, Aylesbury from time 
 immemorial had always that honour. Near to the 
 town is Stowe, the seat for generations of the 
 Grenvilles, Dukes of Buckingham (and now the 
 residence of the Due d'Orleans and other members 
 of the royal family of France), with Whaddon 
 Chase, a noted stronghold of the ancient Britons 
 when Julius Caesar invaded the country 55 b.c. 
 Yet in the south it is equally to be noticed, contain- 
 ing as it does the historic College of Eton, founded 
 by King Henry III. 
 
 The county here is bounded by the River 
 Thames — full as it is of history, with ' Danesfield,' 
 near Great Marlow, where are the remains of a 
 very perfect Danish camp. Nor must the village 
 of Penn be forgotten — the home of the Penns — who 
 founded Pennsylvania, in the United States of 
 America. In this county poetry is nobly represented 
 — by the residence of John Milton, who wrote 
 ' Paradise Lost,' at Chalfont St. Giles ; Hall 
 Barn, the home of the courtly Waller in the reign 
 of Charles II., now the residence of Sir Edward 
 Lawson, Bart. ; Gray, with his elegy of the country 
 churchyard, at Stoke Poges ; Cowper, of Olney ; 
 and it is confidently believed that glorious Will 
 
8 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 Shakespeare, whilst on his journey from Stratford- 
 on-Avon to London, when passing through Grendon 
 Underwood, a village on the road from Bicester to 
 Aylesbury, drew his picture of boorish life in the 
 ' Midsummer Night's Dream ' of ' Bottom the 
 Weaver ' and his companions from sojourners in 
 a village ale-house. Adjoining this village is 
 Ludgershall, where Wyclifle, one of the earliest 
 champions of the Reformation, was vicar, and near 
 to which is the little town of Brill, where King 
 John had a palace, from whence he could hunt at 
 his Manor of Boarstall and the forest of Berne- 
 wood. Thus it may well be called the historic 
 county of Bucks. 
 
 I have had many opportunities, from a long 
 residence in this county, of searching various records 
 not only typical of the habits and customs of the 
 people of the district, but of others. I think it may 
 interest many people to be reminded of these events 
 and celebrities of a bygone age, and give them some 
 idea of rural life in our dear old country. 
 
 In Green's admirable book on 'The Making of 
 England,' he says, 'It was by Wallingford, or the 
 Ford of the " Whealtas," or Welshmen, as the con- 
 querors called it, that the West Saxons must have 
 passed the Thames in the year 571. Their leader 
 was " Cuthwulf." There was one battle only of 
 which we have record. Cuthbert's raid had carried 
 him from Wallingford to the " Icknield Way," along 
 the western slopes of the Chilterns, as far as 
 Bedford, before the forces of the " Four Towns " 
 
LEAGUE OF THE FOUR TOWNS 9 
 
 could gather news of the foray, and an engagement 
 took place, when the victory fell, as of old, to the 
 Freebooters ; and the success of Cuthwulfs men 
 was followed by the ruin of the " League of the Four 
 owns. 
 ' As one looks westward from the Chilterns, now- 
 a-days, over Aylesbury Vale, the district of the " Four 
 Towns " which formed the league consisted of Eyn- 
 sham, Bensington, Aylesbury, and Lenborough, 
 now a small hamlet near Buckingham. This lies 
 stretched before you as far as Brill. Then, as now, 
 the country was fertile and well peopled. A 
 stream, the Thame, runs through Aylesbury, a 
 town crowned with a church, or " Eglwys" — to which 
 it probably owes its English name. A line close by 
 the town of Thame, marks the present shire line of 
 Bucks and Oxon, and marked the boundary of 
 Aylesbury, and of that ruled by Bensington. The 
 district of Lenborough lay along the Ouse, probably 
 to Olney, and bounded by the territories of 
 Towcester and Aylesbury. It was from the south 
 that the West Saxons struck the country of the 
 " Four Towns." They fought their way along the 
 range of the Chilterns to Bedford and there halted.' 
 Brown Willis, the antiquary, says that Whiteleaf 
 Cross is a corruption of ' White Cliff' Cross, but 
 investigations have proved that it is from the 
 Saxon chief ' Wiglife,' the grandson of Woden, 
 and father of Hengist, who commanded the Saxons 
 in a great batde fought at the foot of the hill, 
 over the remaining portion of the Britons, who 
 
lo RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 still held that part of the country. It is a great 
 height, and the cross rises from a large triangle, 
 and covers a great many acres of ground ; it can 
 be plainly seen at Oxford and other places, more 
 than thirty miles distant. The cross and hill, by 
 Act of Parliament, are declared public property, 
 and it is occasionally scoured at the expense of the 
 Lord of the Manor. 
 
 ' Wayland Smith ' — the god of smiths — and 
 builder of Wayland Smith's cave, was brother of 
 ' ^gil,' who was equal to Thor — the god of battles 
 — and from whom is ' .^Egilsbireg,' or Aylesbury. 
 yEgil was god of the sky, but in later days he was 
 sunk into a darker and terrible deity. The corrup- 
 tions of some words are curious and amusing. 
 Close to the Icknield Way — the Via Iceni — is the 
 ' World's End.' This is the Wold's end, where the 
 wolds or hills merge into the valley. The town of 
 Wendover is the ' wend or wind ' over the hills ; 
 but still more interesting are the adjoining villages 
 of the ' Kimbles,' the residence of ' Cymbeline ' or 
 ' Kymbeline ' (Shakespeare's ' Cymbeline '), King of 
 Britain, 500 years before the Saxons, who was king 
 when Julius Caesar invaded Britain 55 B.C. 
 
 Whilst alluding to Aylesbury, I don't think it is 
 generally known that the unfortunate Queen Anne 
 Boleyn was often called ' The Fair Maid of 
 Aylesbury.' Her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, 
 became Earl of Wiltshire ; he inherited the Manor 
 of Aylesbury through his mother, who was a 
 daugfhter of Thomas Boteler. The Earl sold the 
 
THE FAIR MAID OF AYLESBURY ii 
 
 manor to Lord Chief Justice Baldwin. The cause 
 of his selling the manor was, he says in a letter to 
 Thomas, Lord Bramwell : ' The truth is, that when 
 I married my wife I had but fifty pounds a year for 
 me and my wife as long as my father lived, and yet 
 she brought me a child every year.' A writer of 
 eminence says : ' This fair maid of Aylesbury, 
 is described as being of that singular beauty and 
 tendernesse that her parents took all care possible 
 of her education. Therefore, besides the ordinary 
 parts of virtuous instructions, wherewith she was 
 liberally brought up, they gave her teachers in 
 playing on musical instruments, singing, and 
 dancing, inasmuch that when she composed her 
 hands to play and her voice to sing, it was joined 
 with that sweetness of countenance that three 
 harmonies concurred. Likewise, when she danced, 
 her rare proportions varied themselves into all the 
 graces that belong either to rest or motion.' These 
 accomplishments, improved by the ease and self- 
 possession she had acquired at the Court of France, 
 captured, but could not secure, the affections of the 
 salacious Henry, who, having conceived a passion 
 for Jane Seymour, caused the Queen to be tried 
 for adultery. This abominable charge rested on 
 no other ground than some slight indiscretions, 
 which her ' simplicity had equally betrayed to 
 commit and to avow.' No proof of innocence could 
 avail, however, with the king ; she was condemned 
 to die, and she expired on the scaffold. In one of 
 her affecting protestations, which she sent to her 
 
12 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 unfeeling persecutor, she thus expresses herself: 
 ' From a private station you have raised me to that 
 of a countess, from a countess you have made me 
 queen, and now you can raise me one step higher — 
 to be a saint in heaven.' Anne Boleyn, when in 
 the plenitude of her power, was a distinguished 
 promoter of the Reformation, and all Englishmen 
 should never be allowed to forget, that she was the 
 mother of that truly great Sovereign, Queen 
 Elizabeth. 
 
13 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Turnpikes and their keepers — Origin of turnpike trusts — General rate 
 of tolls — Mr. Wellei-'s opinions of pike men — A turnpike letting — 
 ' Pikers ' and their methods — Sharp practice — Lessees of tolls — 
 Feasting after the fray — Management of roads. 
 
 The great changes which have taken place in 
 almost every department in rural, and even in town, 
 life during the past fifty years is a sufficient excuse 
 for my touching upon certain customs that really 
 affected the whole body politic. Amongst many of 
 those changes none seemed to make so much 
 alteration as the abolition of turnpike gates. The 
 present generation know but little of what these 
 obstructions were, and but few even of those living 
 at the time of their existence knew their history and 
 management. I am not quite certain that my 
 description of their origin is strictly correct, but 
 having had in my early youth and manhood many 
 opportunities of studying this particular phase of 
 the genus homo — I mean turnpike gatekeepers, or 
 ' pikers,' as also of the lessees of the tolls, who held 
 many of the ' trusts ' as they were called — I am 
 enabled to give a slight sketch of this department 
 of road management, together with the origin of 
 turnpike trusts, and the methods by which they 
 
14 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 were conducted. I have been informed of what was 
 the origin of these trusts, viz. that when the land- 
 owners and other inhabitants of- certain districts 
 were desirous of improving the means of com- 
 munication between the towns, villages, and their 
 properties adjacent, they went for an Act of 
 Parliament, or employed the powers of the general 
 Turnpike Act. 
 
 They agreed to make certain roads, hitherto 
 entirely maintained by the parishes through which 
 they ran, into more extended fields of operation, 
 and the then existing parish roads were widened, 
 straightened, and otherwise vastly improved. 
 
 A ' trust ' was formed with a number of 
 gentlemen, chiefly of owners of land in the vicinity, 
 who were empowered to raise money, by loan, 
 to improve these highways, and to erect gates 
 or barriers across them at certain places, to 
 enable authorised persons to collect tolls from the 
 drivers of all carriages, horses, cattle, or other 
 animals passing through them, for the formation and 
 maintenance of the roads included in the said trust. 
 In general, these tolls were annually let by a species 
 of public auction to the highest bidders, who were 
 accepted if they were prepared to adhere to the 
 conditions submitted to them. The usual tolls 
 throuo'hout England and Wales were — for a horse 
 passing through the gates, ridden or led, i^d., but 
 if drawing any vehicle 4^^'., so that a gig or phaeton 
 with one horse paid 4^^., and a carriage with a pair 
 r)d., and so on. The imposition fell with particular 
 
TURNPIKE GATES, AND TOLLS 15 
 
 hardship on farmers, and became a tax on their 
 trade, as when sending their corn or other produce, with 
 waggon and four horses, they paid is. 6d. or 2^. yi. 
 in some instances ; often going through two gates in 
 the space of eight or ten miles, they would thus have 
 to pay 3^. or 4^. 6d., and, in some instances, so 
 exacting were the lessees, that if the same waggon 
 which had conveyed corn or other produce to 
 market brought back coal, oil-cake, or other feeding 
 stuffs, they were expected to pay the same amount 
 over again. Cattle, when passing through, paid so 
 much per score — about \od. — sheep and pigs rather 
 less. There were also severely heavy penalties for 
 waggons and carts carrying over a ton of goods of 
 farm or other produce, if the wheels of the vehicle 
 were under a specified width. Thus it became the 
 custom to have broad-wheeled carts and waggons to 
 save the extra toll. When a toll was paid it freed 
 the payer up to twelve o'clock the same night ; he 
 could go through the gate as often as he pleased, 
 but woe betide the gaily disposed individual if he 
 had stayed at a friend's house, or had driven the 
 ladies to an evening's entertainment or to a ball, 
 if he waited till the early hours of the morning, or 
 one single minute after the clock struck twelve ; the 
 gatekeeper was down upon him, and he had 
 to fork out an extra toll, seeing that he had 
 entered into another day. But the most intoler- 
 able nuisance of the turnpike was, that soon after 
 twilight had set in, you had to wait in the rain, 
 wind, or snow till the 'piker' opened his gate. 
 
i6 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 and his operations were invariably conducted at a 
 snail's pace. He then sauntered indoors to get 
 change, whilst you underwent all the miseries of delay 
 iind consequent loss of temper. If at night, often as 
 early as nine o'clock, you had to bang the door of 
 the gatehouse till the man got up — generally in his 
 night shirt, and an old coat thrown over him, and 
 often with a tasselled night-cap for headgear. He 
 then had to unlock the gate, and throw, or rather 
 deliberately push it open to let you pass through. 
 These gatekeepers rarely remained at the same 
 gate more than a year or two at a time, as the tolls 
 were often taken by different persons at the annual 
 letting, and sometimes the lessees themselves came 
 to reside at the houses attached to the gates, or 
 put their sons or relatives in. In some instances 
 they were extremely agreeable, nice people, but 
 oftener they were sour, uncivil fellows, who seemed 
 to delight in making themselves obnoxious to 
 travellers. Dickens makes the elder Weller say 
 that ' They're all on 'em men as has met with some 
 disappintment in life, consequence of vich they 
 retires from the world, and shuts themselves up in 
 pikes, partly with the view of being solitary, and partly 
 to rewenge themselves on mankind by takin' tolls. 
 If they was gen'lm'n you'd call 'em misanthropes, 
 but as it is, they only takes to pike-keepin'.' 
 
 The distances from one turnpike gate to another 
 varied very much, but generally the stopping-places 
 were about eight to ten miles apart. In some places, 
 as, for instance, my native town of Aylesbury the 
 
INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF TURNPIKES 17 
 
 place was literally hemmed in like a fortified city, 
 not even an outlet to exercise a horse without 
 paying a toll. There were seven different turnpike 
 trusts to maintain in relation to the town. The 
 funds collected from the g^tes were paid into the 
 treasurer's hands of each trust, and the roads were 
 repaired from them. It will be observed that a 
 large amount was absorbed in paying lawyers, who 
 were generally appointed to the posts of treasurers 
 and clerks to the trustees, and also to surveyors. 
 There were seven sets of officials for all these 
 trusts, whereas one would have been sufficient. In 
 many instances the interests on the loans had been 
 unpaid for many years. I myself knew of several 
 trusts where the interest had been in arrear for more 
 than twenty-five years. After those leeches of 
 officials had sucked in their salaries, there was but 
 little over 50 per cent, of the takings left for the 
 actual repair and maintenance of the roads. The 
 lessees also expected to get a fair profit on their 
 outlay, and the collectors received from 20s. to 2 5^. 
 per week, which made a great inroad into the receipts 
 from the tolls. At last, owing to the introduction 
 of railways, the funds for which the gates were let 
 were so crippled, that by degrees one trust after 
 the other expired, in most instances considerable 
 loss being experienced by the original bondholders, 
 who had found the money for the construction of 
 the roads. In many cases already printed as above, 
 the holders were glad to get anything back ; and 
 I have heard that the average amount repaid to the 
 
 c 
 
i8 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 bondholders throughout the country when the trusts 
 were abolished was not more than 4^. or 5^. in the 
 pound. 
 
 In giving this imperfect sketch of the establish- 
 ment of turnpike trusts, I cannot forbear adding 
 some slight account of the method of letting the tolls. 
 The trustees, who were mostly country gentlemen 
 of the district, forgathered at the principal inn in 
 the county town in considerable numbers, and the 
 whole place being en Jete, there was an assembly 
 of as strange a collection of humanity as could well 
 be grot together. It was usual for the trustees to 
 give a guinea for each gate let to be expended in 
 refreshments, and as generally there were six or 
 eight gates, there would be that number of 
 guineas spent amongst about forty or fifty ' pikers,' 
 as they were called, who attended, but only about 
 six or seven of these would be bidders and lessees ; 
 these were men of capital, who rarely collected their 
 own tolls. Those who witnessed these meetings 
 called them the ' Whispering Society,' as the com- 
 pany scattered about the inn yard in groups of three, 
 five, or more, were in full conclave, all in whispers ; 
 one would run off and whisper to another group 
 and return again, when they would be approached 
 by another envoy, whilst circulating rapidly amongst 
 them was one of the bond fide bidders, evidently 
 making terms with several threatening opponents, 
 and promising from i/. to 5/. to the recipient who 
 refrained from bidding. At the appointed time a 
 rush was made to the auction room, where the 
 
MODE OF LETTING THE TOLLS 19 
 
 trustees, with their clerks, treasurers, surveyors, and 
 other officers, were assembled. After the conditions 
 were read the letting commenced, but it sometimes 
 happened that the whispering had been so effective 
 that not a single offer was made, to the astonish- 
 ment of the trustees, who had not seen the 
 Machiavellian manoeuvres that had been going on 
 for more than an hour elsewhere. As no biddings 
 were made, it was then announced that the upset 
 price was, say, 200/. for each gate, and that unless 
 that sum was obtained, the gates would be with- 
 drawn and the trustees would put in their own 
 collectors and farm the gates themselves. When 
 the sum was announced a Qeneral Qroan of horror 
 went round, and the trustees were told that the offer 
 was so outrageous it could not be listened to ; that 
 the last two years the gates had not produced more 
 than 180/. to 190/., and the lessees had lost all their 
 wages and expenses, but if they would listen to 
 reason a tenant could be found at 150/. Suddenly 
 some stranger to the ' pikers,' who had been un- 
 observed by them, would bid 180/., at which there 
 would be a burst of indignation and an outbreak of 
 insulting by-play. ' Was that your bid, Jem .'' ' one 
 would exclaim. ' No,' another would remark ; ' I 
 ain't such a d — — d fool as that ' ; whereupon one of 
 the body would spring 5/., and after a pause the 
 stranger would top it with a bid of 190/., when a 
 gentleman of the Hebrew race, highly adorned with 
 gold watch-chain and rings, and dressed in extra 
 fashionable clothes, would rap the floor and hold 
 
20 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 a ventriloquial conversation with an imaginary 
 partisan down in the cellar, calling his attention to 
 the lunatic who had just come out of the asylum, 
 and was bidding for this gate, suggesting that his 
 keeper should be sent for. All this amid shouts of 
 laughter, and the chairman of the trustees calling 
 ' order.' After a long silence another 5/. would be 
 advanced, when the stranger would immediately cap 
 it by saying he would give the reserve. Great con- 
 sternation would follow, and then you would hear 
 the old lessee, who declared he had lost so much by 
 taking the gates for the last two years, say that it 
 had been a good hay and corn harvest, and that 
 the steeplechases would come off in the year, and 
 risk it by giving another 5/., and make it 205/. 
 This recollection of an oft-repeated scene may be 
 accepted as a fair specimen of a gate letting. All 
 the whispering which had taken place beforehand 
 represented an endeavour to buy off every dangerous 
 opponent. Many persons came down from London 
 and elsewhere, under pretence of taking the gates, 
 who earned a sovereign or even 3/. as payment for 
 the day's work from the lessee, who had probably 
 held the gates for the past two or three years and 
 was reluctant to lose them. The business of con- 
 tracting to take turnpikes was in many instances an 
 immensely expensive one. The gentleman who 
 took most of the gates in Bucks and some of the 
 adjoining counties was a Mr. Tongue, living at 
 Manchester, and it was estimated that he had 
 
CAROUSALS OF THE 'PIKERS' 21 
 
 upwards of 50,000/^ annually embarked in gate 
 holding. He retained a regular staff of collectors, 
 who moved about from one part of the country to 
 another, as his confidential servants. It should be 
 observed that the stranger (in my typical scene at 
 a sale) who had been bidding was put up by the 
 trustees as an imaginary lessee to prevent such 
 machinations as those which the Whispering Society 
 had arrano^ed. Followino; the lettinof came the 
 dinner and the carouse, at which, it is needless to 
 remark, the money of the trustees was rapidly 
 expended. It was amusing to watch the advent of 
 the cigars after the dinner. Young aspirants to 
 smoking honours would station themselves behind 
 the door of the dining-room ; when the waiters 
 brought the cigars in by a dozen at a time in glass 
 tumblers, a dash would be made, and before the 
 choice Havannahs could be brought into the room 
 they were appropriated — viilgo stolen — ' convey the 
 wise it call ' — and pocketed by the snatchers. The 
 lessee generally put half a dozen port and sherry on 
 the table, but took care to retain a couple of bottles for 
 the consumption privately of himself and personal 
 friends. All this is now abolished ! The old turnpike 
 gates are gone with the ' pikers ' ! No more exciting 
 scenes on the road to Gretna by happy, but fearful 
 couples ; no more delays by stubborn pikers, already 
 suborned to delay the pursuers by failing to give 
 change, so immortalised by Caldecott and the old 
 yellow post-chaise. And now the maintenance and 
 
22 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 repairs of the roads are thrown on the backs of the 
 already overtaxed farmers, to be again transferred 
 to the tender mercies of the modern county councils. 
 ' The old things have passed away and all things 
 have become new.' Well may it be said, ' Tempora 
 mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis.' 
 
23 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Early recollections of posting — Post-horse duty — The old inns and 
 posting-houses — Collection of the duty — Manners and customs of 
 travellers who posted — Cost — Post-horse Farmers — Shillibeer, the 
 well-known Undertaker — Abolition of the duty. 
 
 Many recollections of my busy life crowd upon me 
 but there are some which should not be forgotten, 
 and are singular records of bygone times. Some 
 years ago the general public travelled but little ; 
 there were, in fact, few opportunities to go even 
 from one neighbouring town or village to another. 
 It is, indeed, marvellous to me how business and 
 pleasure were carried on in my boyhood. I knew 
 well how the nobility and gentry moved about the 
 country, namely, by post-horses. And this brings 
 to my memory what ' posting ' in those days really 
 was, and how few there are now living who under- 
 stand it. 
 
 The period of ' Pickwick ' was not only that of 
 'pikes' and 'pike-keepers,' but it was the palmy 
 days of posting. Posting-houses and post-horses, 
 with the system of travelling by the turnpike road 
 which flourished in my youth, tempt me to again 
 draw upon my recollections. A posting chapter 
 follows naturally upon one devoted to toll-gates and 
 toll-keepers. 
 
24 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 The principal innkeepers in the town con- 
 sidered it a cHstinction to be enabled to place upon 
 their sign-boards the words ' Posting- House,' such as 
 the White Hart Inn and ' Posting-House.' The inti- 
 mation was to the effect that not only horses could 
 be provided to forward travellers onwards, but that 
 acconimodation could be offered for a party of 
 travellers, servants included, for the night. It was, 
 therefore, only the leading inns which could rank as 
 posting-houses. A heavy tax was paid to Govern- 
 ment, called the post-horse duty, and the manner in 
 which it was levied, paid, and collected, was so 
 extraordinary that it can scarcely be credited in the 
 present day. It was impossible that this tax could 
 be properly collected without the assistance of the 
 turnpike gates, and it was not for some years after 
 the duty was repealed that these road obstructions 
 were abolished. Had they been destroyed earlier 
 the post-horse duty must have gone with them. 
 The duty was charged at i^d. per horse per mile, 
 but as in the posting days few people travelled 
 with less than a pair of horses, the one-horse fly 
 not having then been invented, at least four-fifths 
 of the travelling was performed in the owner's 
 private carriage ; a pair or four horses being used, 
 according to the size of the carriage and the 
 number of the passengers, and generally by the 
 social rank of the traveller. When a carriage 
 pulled up at the door of the inn a shout was heard 
 of ' First turn out !' The ostler and all the house- 
 hold, generally with the proprietor at their head. 
 
POSTING IN THE OLDEN TIME 25 
 
 were immediately alive to the occasion. As one 
 pair of horses was always kept ready harnessed and 
 saddled in the stable throughout the day, until 
 racking-up and feeding time at night, ready for 
 every emergency, no time was lost, the post-boy 
 being already booted and spurred, the driver almost 
 invariably riding, or, to use the prevalent term, 
 ' bumped the saddle.' The traveller, who was 
 probably coming from or going to the metropolis, 
 gave out the place he was bound for, asked the 
 number of miles, say to Buckingham or Bicester 
 (seventeen miles), and as the charge, including duty, 
 for a pair of horses was is. 6d. a mile, the amount 
 would be i/. 5^. 6d., which was generally paid before 
 starting. Sixpence was given to the ostler, and 3^'. 
 per mile for the post-boy ; and as there were three 
 turnpike gates on the road, the cost at gd. each was 
 2s. 3^'., with I IS. for an occasional bait or stoppage, 
 it brought the amount as near as possible to 2^^. 
 per mile. The pace, including stoppage, changing 
 horses, &c., was about eight to nine miles per hour. 
 Thus, if the travellers left London, si.xty miles 
 distant, at ten o'clock in the morning, with an hour for 
 luncheon en route, by six o'clock they were ready for 
 dinner : they rarely travelled beyond that hour, and 
 then made themselves comfortable for the night. It 
 will therefore be observed what an expensive and 
 difficult thing it became to move an establishment, 
 with children and servants, about the country ; and 
 that when a family left their house in the early spring 
 for the London season, there was but little induce- 
 
26 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 merit for them to return home till the middle or end 
 of July. 
 
 The ' riding ' post-horse was generally a good 
 specimen of a fairly useful weight-carrying hunter 
 of the present day, trotting well, with head and tail 
 up, at about ten miles an hour, and capable of draw- 
 ing half a ton behind him, with the boy, about eight 
 stone, on his back in addition. He usually cost about 
 30/. As a riding horse he generally lasted about 
 four or five years, when he became rather unsafe to 
 ride, and was called a ' hand horse,' from being 
 placed on the offside of the pole of the carriage, 
 and was but rarely ridden afterwards. Throughout 
 the kingdom there were almost invariably two rival 
 posting-houses in every important town, at one 
 establishment the post-boys riding in blue jackets, 
 the other in yellow, with black or white top hats, 
 drab cloth or leather breeches, and top boots. The 
 blue and yellow jackets had their own line, and ran 
 to the same houses of each colour throughout the 
 country. I have heard a gentleman say that he 
 had travelled from York to London, beginning with 
 a blue jacket, without deviation the whole distance, 
 never having got on the yellow line. The riders, 
 who were called post-boys, were often very old 
 fellows. 'Old Humphrey' lived with my father, 
 and ' drove post ' for over forty-five years, and it 
 was never known how old he was. (According to 
 Sam Weller, nobody ever saw a dead post-boy.) 
 
 The post-horse duty was collected in this wise. 
 When the horses at each stage were being changed. 
 
COLLECTION OF POST-HORSE DUTY 27 
 
 the proprietor of the inn made out the ticket, as it 
 was called, a number of which were strung up in the 
 bar. They were supplied by the Government, and 
 bore the royal arms. They were in blank for the 
 date — the place from which the horses started — the 
 place of destination — the number of miles, and at the 
 foot the name of the driver was inserted. These 
 tickets were printed on stiff paper, about the size of 
 a modern postcard. The blanks were filled in and 
 the ticket given to the post-boy when he had mounted 
 the saddle, a heavy fine being inflicted on the post- 
 master if he neglected this part of his duty. At the 
 first turnpike gate through which the carriage 
 passed, the boy was bound to deliver the ticket, at 
 the risk of another heavy fine. It would sometimes 
 happen that the delivery was omitted, but the post- 
 boy could, of course, remedy the omission on his 
 return. If, however, the gatekeeper was can- 
 tankerous, he might refuse the ticket, and thereupon 
 a heavy fine was incurred. Each morning the post- 
 master was bound to fill up the official duty sheet, 
 with every hiring of the previous day, showing the 
 number of miles and the amount payable. This 
 was a great nuisance, and if any error, however 
 trifling, occurred, a fine of double duty would be 
 inflicted. 
 
 England and Scotland were divided into districts 
 comprising three or four counties, which were let, or 
 farmed, out to different contractors, who were called 
 ' Post-horse Farmers.' Messrs. Levi and others of 
 the Hebrew race were generally the farmers who 
 
28 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 employed agents to call at the turnpikes in their 
 districts and collect the tickets. These asfents 
 waited on the postmaster every month, who com- 
 pared and checked off the entries with the tickets 
 collected, and when the amount was ascertained the 
 money was paid. These men were harpies who 
 exacted the uttermost farthing, and if inadvertently 
 a date was wrong, or even a penny omitted, 
 cumulative fines were imposed. I remember a 
 monstrous instance of this form of exaction. 
 Through a misapprehension of the law, a post- 
 master had entered two pence short in one of his 
 sheets, and this had been carried on about eight 
 times, during a period of six months, the total 
 amount omitted being one shilling and fourpence. 
 Well, fines were inflicted amounting to nearly 
 1,500/. ! After considerable litigation the action 
 was compromised for 50/. The grossest tyranny 
 was practised, the Act of Parliament being strained 
 to the utmost. Eventually a meeting of the post- 
 masters of England and Scotland (Ireland being 
 exempt, which I could never understand) was held 
 in the Freemasons' Hall, London, presided over by 
 Mr. Shillibeer, the famous Undertaker, and the first 
 man to introduce the omnibus into England. He 
 had been a great sufferer under the iniquitous 
 system. A deputation waited on Mr. Disraeli, the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Derby's 
 first administration, who promised to assist in 
 destroying this last remains of ' farming ' the 
 revenue, but the Ministry suddenly came to an end. 
 
ABOLITION OF THE DUTY 29 
 
 The following year, however, Mr. Gladstone 
 abolished the post-horse duty, substituting therefor 
 an annual tax on all horses let for hire, and on post- 
 carriiiges, in lieu of it. A few years afterwards Sir 
 Stafford Northcote repealed the duties on horses, 
 and thus that most obnoxious tax upon horses 
 and posting disappeared for ever. This duty, I 
 believe, had brought into the Exchequer about 
 500,000/. per annum, but the amount exacted from 
 the public was considerably more, as the cost of 
 collection was enormous, and the profits made by 
 the farmers correspondingly large. The post- 
 masters opened a subscription for Mr. Shillibeer, and 
 presented him with a handsome service of plate, 
 and a cheque for 800/., and so ended the post- 
 horse duties. I have written this statement that 
 men of the present day may know what certain 
 trades had to put up with, in the memory of many 
 still living. The introduction of railways gave the 
 coup de gr-dce to the old posting trade. 
 
RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Eton Montem — Customs — Their origin — Collecting salt — Waving the 
 flag on the Mount ad Montem — Salt bearers — The Windmill Inn — • 
 Mr. Botham — The traffic on the Great Western road — Royalty — 
 The Playing Fields— Dr. Goodall — Dinton. 
 
 In my numerous researches into old country 
 customs, I have been tempted to record many 
 stories, which tend to illustrate the habits and 
 customs of the English people in olden times 
 Naturally I have been better able to collect 
 materials from my native county of Bitcks than 
 elsewhere, but they afford types of other parts of 
 rural England. Some are of Parliamentary history, 
 others parochial, whilst amongst them are notes 
 referring to the glorious public school — I mean 
 ' Eton College.' I find that the first stone of the 
 chapel was laid on J uly 3, 1441, and writs were issued 
 for assembling together workmen for the speedy com- 
 pletion of the building. The school owed its founda- 
 tion to Henry VI., and it was evidently to instruct 
 in grammar those who were to take Holy Orders. 
 As old Fuller remarks, ' It was high time some school 
 should be founded, considering how low grammar 
 learning then ran in the land.' At times there was 
 
HISTORY OF ETON MONTEM 31 
 
 considerable trouble as to the proper foundation of 
 the college. At the time of Henry VIII. the 
 college was threatened with dissolution, but the 
 death of the king prevented it, and its destruction 
 was specially excepted in the Act for the dissolution 
 of colleges and chantries in the rei^n of Edward YI. 
 Amongst the old customs of Eton College was that 
 of hunting the Ram. In some curious manuscripts 
 in the British Museum it is stated that the custom 
 obtained in the Manor of Wrotham, in Norfolk, 
 which belongs to the college, where the Lord of 
 the Manor, after harvest, gave half an acre of barley 
 and a ram to the tenants. If the tenants caught 
 the ram it became theirs ; if they failed to do so, it 
 belonged to the Lord again. As late as 1 747 the 
 collegers hunted the Ram. Perhaps the most interest- 
 ing custom was the celebration of ' Montem,' the last 
 of which it was my privilege to have attended more 
 than fifty years ago. The procedure of the Montem 
 was, according to ' Brand's Popular Antiquities,' 
 that on Whit Tuesday a procession was made every 
 third year to a tumulus or mound close to the turn- 
 pike road, and nearly opposite to the great ' Wind- 
 mill Inn,' which I remember well, as a large old- 
 fashioned hostelry, with immense stabling and yards 
 for more than a hundred horses. When I was 
 there it was kept by Mr. Botham, who horsed some of 
 the coaches on the great Bath road, and kept upwards 
 of twenty pairs of post-horses. This assemblage 
 was called the ' Montem,' from the school procession 
 going to the tumulus or 'ad Montem.' The village 
 
32 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 was named ' Salt Hill,' from the collection of 'salt,' 
 as it was called, which was money collected from 
 all who were present, or who travelled along the 
 high road that day. Royalty often attended the 
 meeting. The late Mr. Montagu Williams, O.C., 
 who was an Etonian, and proud of it, as they all 
 are, or ought to be, says, in his ' Leaves of a Life,' 
 that ' Royalty itself was not free from the tax. Two 
 " salt-bearers " were stationed on Windsor Bridgfe, 
 and when the Queen drove down the hill — and she 
 never missed a Montem — the elder of the two 
 stepped forward, stopped the carriage, and, taking 
 off his hat, with the words, " Salt, your Majesty, 
 salt," placed under contribution the highest and 
 noblest lady in the land.' The gentlemen students 
 of the school went in military procession from 
 Eton to Salt Hill — those on the higher forms in 
 scarlet military jackets, white trousers, and plumed 
 cocked hats, wearing swords ; those on the lower 
 forms in the present costume of short jackets, lay- 
 down collars, and top hats. On arriving at Salt 
 Hill, the ensign, who was the lieutenant, or second 
 boy in the school, ascended the Mount, waved and 
 flourished a flag, either the Union Jack or Royal 
 Standard, whilst the boys marched round in pro- 
 cession. A short Latin service was then read by the 
 chaplain and his clerks. The salt-bearers were 
 busy in collecting the salt. These officials were 
 leading students, and were dressed in splendid 
 mediceval costumes of great beauty, velvet or satin 
 cloaks, trunk hose, gorgeous hats with plumes of 
 
ETON MONTEM, SALT-BEARERS 
 
 OJ 
 
 feathers ; they went in pairs, carrying very beauti- 
 ful and richly embroidered bags for collecting ' salt,' 
 holding them up to the travellers and wayfarers 
 passing along the roads. There were about twelve 
 salt-bearers, and, holding up their gorgeous bags, 
 cried ' Salt, salt ! ' The amount when collected was 
 brought to the headmaster's house, counted, and 
 was then invested to endow the first boy in this 
 school, and thus pay his expenses to King's College, 
 Cambridge. 
 
 The year when I attended, nearly i,ooo/. was 
 collected. This was a grand contribution, the boy 
 being a very popular scholar. The boys, number- 
 ing over 800, were regaled at the ' Windmill ' ; after 
 dinner those in military attire with scarlet coats, 
 white trousers, cocked hats and feathers, drew their 
 swords, entered the gardens of the inn, and ruth- 
 lessly slashed and cut down all the shrubs and 
 flowers. Mr. Botham was most indignant at this 
 wanton destruction of his gardens, but it was pleaded 
 by the depredators, that the motto ' Mos pro lege ' 
 was sufficient to excuse them. In the end the 
 authorities had to pay nearly 100/. for this serious 
 damage, and the outrage was one of the reasons 
 given for abolishing the ' Montem.' It was finally 
 abandoned about 1844. In the evening of this 
 celebration the playing fields near the college were 
 filled with the beauty and fashion of the families 
 whose sons were at Eton and of the neighbourhood, 
 promenading to the strains of military bands, and a 
 grand display of fireworks brought the ' Montem ' to 
 
 D 
 
34 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 an end. Thus concluded one of the most delightful 
 customs handed down to us from the middle ages. 
 When the list of English worthies in learning, politics, 
 and war is scanned, a large majority will be found 
 to have had their educational career commenced at 
 Eton. Well might it be recorded that the Duke of 
 Wellington, in allusion to the great athletic feats 
 performed by Eton boys, and by the inculcating to 
 them of those noble principles of honour, patriotism, 
 and self-reliance, taught there, say, ' The battle of 
 Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.' — 
 ' Floreat Etona.' 
 
 Whilst writing of the Eton Montem, the dear 
 old provost. Dr. Goodall, is brought to my recollec- 
 tion. In my boyhood 1 well remember his genial, 
 benevolent countenance, often lit up with a 
 humorous smile, when he changed horses at my 
 father's house at Aylesbury, on his way from Eton 
 to his brother, who resided at Dinton Hall, which 
 was about five miles from the town and three from 
 Hartwell. I was always glad to see the Provost, 
 as he had generally some kind remark to make, 
 adorned with some simple Latin quotation, as it 
 struck me, to discover if I kept up my school classics, 
 which fortunately I did. Doctor Goodall's brother 
 was vicar of Dinton. He was a very aged man, 
 who, many years before, had married a daughter of 
 Sir John \^an Hattem,' who was a member of the 
 ' Hell-Fire Club,' with the Earl of Chesterfield, who 
 had a fine house at Eythrope, about three miles 
 
 ' N.B. — He came over with, and was Xa\al A.D.C. to William 
 and Mary. 
 
DINTON HALL AND SIMON MAYNE 35 
 
 from his hall. John Wilkes, the member of Parlia- 
 ment for Aylesbury, was a ' Hell-Fire ' man ; in fact, 
 all three were members of that terrible fraternity 
 of Medmenham Abbey notoriety. Sir John was 
 the owner, and resided at that fine old hall, be- 
 queathing it to his daughter, who married the Rev. 
 Joseph Goodall, and thus the mansion came into the 
 family, and is now inhabited by his grandson, 
 Colonel Goodall, who married one of the Miss Lees 
 of Hartwell ; and thus it was that these two families 
 became united. I well remember the Rev. Mr. 
 Goodall and his venerable lady, although it is more 
 than sixty years ago. Dinton Hall has historical 
 associations. At one time it belonged to William 
 of Wareham, Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, and his arms are still preserved in 
 several of the painted windows. It was the residence 
 of Simon Mayne, the Regicide, who was one of the 
 signatories to the death warrant of the martyred 
 King Charles I. He was member of Parliament for 
 Aylesbury at that time, and was one of the excepted 
 Regicides, yet was arraigned for high treason on 
 October 16, 1660. Simon Mayne sat as member for 
 Aylesbury through the whole of the Protectorate. He 
 said, in his defence, that he was drawn into signing the 
 King's death warrant. He was, however, sentenced 
 to be imprisoned in the Tower, where he died the 
 next year, and was buried at Dinton. His colleague 
 in the representation of Aylesbury was another 
 Regicide, one Thomas Scott. He was originally a 
 brewer, and afterwards an attorney in the town. He 
 
36 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 was excepted from the Act of Indemnity, and always 
 exulted in the part he took in the death of the King. 
 He was executed at Charing Cross. At the scaffold 
 he said, ' Gentlemen, I stand here a spectacle to 
 God, and to angels, and to men. To you I have 
 something to say : In the beginning of these troubles 
 I, with many others, was dissatisfied; I saw the 
 dangers and the approach of Popery in a great 
 
 measure coming on us ; I saw ' The Sheriff and 
 
 Under-sheriff interrupted him. ' 'Tis hard that an 
 Englishman hath not liberty to speak, and that you 
 will not hear the last words of a dying man.' He 
 then prayed to God, and thanked Him that he had 
 engaged in a cause not to be repented of. On his 
 prayer being ended, he was cast off the ladder. 
 Colonel Jones and Colonel John Wood were also 
 executed at the same time ; they were hanged, drawn 
 and quartered. 
 
 I find it recorded that after the battle of Naseby 
 Cromwell went to Dinton Hall on his return, 
 probably on the route to Chequers Court, near 
 Ellesborough, the residence of his daughter, Mrs. 
 Russell, and that he left behind him his sword as 
 a property, not to any particular family, but to the 
 mansion of Dinton for ever. Colonel Goodall writes 
 me 'that the sword is still in his possession. It is 
 a beautifully balanced weapon, with the name of the 
 celebrated maker, " Andrea Ferrara," on both 
 sides of the blade.' Cromwell most likely went also 
 to Dinton to visit his friend Simon Mayne, at that 
 time owner of the Hall in the same parish. Wal- 
 dridge was then inhabited by Sir Richard Ingoldsby, 
 
JOHN BIGG, THE DINTON HERMIT ^y 
 
 who had married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir OHver 
 Cromwell of Hinchinbroke, in the County of Hunt- 
 ingdon, a cousin of the Protector. Sir Richard was 
 buried at Dinton. 
 
 Whilst writing of Dinton Hall I cannot refrain 
 from mentioning the so-called Dinton hermit. He 
 was one John Bigg. In the earlier part of his 
 life he was clerk to Simon Mayne, when the latter 
 was Justice of the Peace. This hermit abode in a 
 cave underground, in the parish, and for several 
 years wandered about the neighbourhood receiving 
 alms and food from the benevolent. He never 
 changed his clothes, and his method of mending 
 them was by sewing fresh pieces of cloth or leather 
 over the decayed part. I have seen one of his 
 shoes at Dinton Hall, and I believe it is still in 
 Colonel Goodall's possession. This shoe had been 
 so often mended by pieces of leather nailed together, 
 that it was tenfold its original thickness. The fellow 
 shoe is now in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford. 
 John Bigg died on April 2, 1696, and was buried at 
 Dinton on April 4. It has often been alleged that 
 he was the executioner who beheaded the King, 
 Charles I. 
 
 In mentioning the abolition of the Eton Montem 
 it is necessary to call attention to the fact of the 
 opening of the Great Western Railway at that time, 
 which had driven the coaches off the Great Bath 
 Road, as also the carriages of the nobility and 
 gentry, thus making the collection of ' salt ' a serious 
 diminution, and rendering it scarcely worth while to 
 go to so great an expense for the service. 
 
38 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Early recollections of the Derby — Lord Berners and Phosphorus in 
 1837 — Caravan and Lord Sufificld — My first Derby — Bloomsbury's 
 year, 1839 — My costume — Heavy snowstorm on Oakapple Day, 
 May 29 — Opening of the London and South-Western Railway 
 from Nine Elms — 'No more trains!' — Cab to Kingston — A 
 borrowed ride on a post-chaise — 'Whip behind 1 ' — A mad rush, 
 but in time to see the finish — Amato's victory — From Aylesbur)' to 
 Epsom on horseback in 1841 — Well-named Little ' Wonder' : won 
 with 40 to I against him — The Queen and Prince Albert present — 
 Running Rein — Daniel O'Rourke — My folly. 
 
 Many writers have described their visits to Epsom 
 Downs on the day of the Derby, the race par 
 excellence of the sporting world. Some of my own 
 Derby Day adventures and experiences I am 
 tempted to recapitulate. I had from my schoolboy 
 days delighted in horse racing, and I remember in 
 very early life hearing of the ' dead heat ' for the 
 Derby between Cadland and The Colonel, which 
 ended in the run off, after an exciting race, in the 
 triumph of the former. That event was in 1828. 
 The competing jockeys were J. Robinson and 
 W. Scott. The field numbered fifteen, and one of 
 the lot fell — I forget which — his rider being seriously 
 injured. The Colonel and Cadland started nearly 
 equal favourites, the latter, as winner of the Two 
 Thousand, having a strong public following. It 
 beinfr determined that ' the decider ' should be run 
 
CADLAND AND THE COLONEL 39 
 
 off after the race for the Durdans Stakes, betting 
 began anew, and left off with 6 to 5 on The 
 Colonel. Cadland made the pace to the chains, 
 when The Colonel got up, but in spite of a tremen- 
 dous finish was beaten by half a length. No third 
 horse was placed by the judge. This was followed 
 some years after by a repetition in my eager hear- 
 ing of the story of Plenipotentiary's race, called 
 for brevity ' Plenipo,' also by Bay Middleton, one 
 of the best horses Lord Jersey ever bred. The 
 Chifneys declared him to be a 15 lb. better horse than 
 ever Priam had been. He won in a canter by a 
 couple of lengths. The recital of these famous 
 victories naturally inspired me with a great desire 
 to see this national event. In the year 1837 I had 
 heard of the exciting race, when the great favourite, 
 great in size as well as fame, Caravan — the son of 
 Camel — was beaten by Lord Berners' Phosphorus. 
 It is stated that the trainer of the latter told his lord- 
 ship, some days before the race, that the horse was 
 lame and unfit to run ; but Lord Berners, who was 
 one of the most honourable men on the turf, de- 
 clared that the public had backed the horse, and 
 that he should run, 'if only on three legs.' It was 
 related by those who saw the start, that Phosphorus 
 was quite lame, but before reaching Tattenham 
 Corner he was running perfectly sound, and despite 
 of all the efforts of the rider of Caravan, he was 
 cleverly beaten. His owner. Lord Suffield, lost a 
 large sum of money on the race, and his estates 
 became encumbered for many a long year after- 
 
40 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 wards. The betting was 40 to i against Phos- 
 phorus, George Borrow, the author of ' Lavengro,' 
 said that of the three personages he always had 
 a desire to see, the second was LampHghter, the 
 sire of Phosphorus, Lord Berners' winner of the 
 Derby, The next year, 1839, was a very memorable 
 one to me, inasmuch as it was the first Derby I 
 ever witnessed. It was remarkable as a sporting 
 event, by being run on May 29, Oakapple Day, in 
 so heavy a fall of snow as to render the colours 
 of the riders almost invisible. Bloomsbury (a son 
 of Mulatto) was the winner, and the race was 
 remembered by me for many years, as I had taken 
 great pains with my costume, a description of which 
 may be given, as affording an idea of the dress 
 of the times. In the present day it would be the 
 height of caddishness to be seen in such loud 
 habiliments, but I was then considered to be a smart 
 lad, and I wore a pair of white duck trousers, 
 strapped clown over a pair of Wellington boots, an 
 olive-brown, cut-away Newmarket coat, with gilt 
 basket-buttons, and the breast looped together by a 
 pair of the tusks of a fox, a buff cashmere waistcoat, 
 and a resplendent blue satin full-sized stock, 
 fastened by two gold pearl pins coupled together by 
 a small chain. I had booked my place by a four- 
 horse coach, which started from the ' Swan with 
 Two Necks ' in Lad Lane, at a guinea fare there and 
 back. We arrived safely on the course soon after 
 one o'clock ; the morning had been very fine, and 
 the ride down most enjoyable. After lounging 
 
THE DERBY IN A SNOWSTORM 41 
 
 about and seeing two races, I prepared for the event 
 of the day, when, just before the start, an ominous 
 blaclv cloud overshadowed the course, and down 
 came such a snowstorm as I had hardly ever 
 witnessed in the depth of winter. I had obtained 
 an excellent place at the ropes, not far from 
 Tattenham Corner, and saw as much of the race as 
 the snowstorm would permit, when I soon found 
 my light summer clothing was too pervious to 
 the melting snow, and before I could reach any 
 shelter I was completely soaked through. As it 
 happened, the coachman and my companions were 
 mostly in the same wet state, and were glad to 
 return. I arrived in a shivering state at my hostelry, 
 the ' Old Bell,' Holborn, then one of the leading 
 Inns in London, where I was only too glad to get 
 between the blankets prior to enjoying my dinner, 
 and, in dry clothes, a visit to Drury Lane Theatre. 
 After the notorious ' Running Rein ' case, statements 
 were rife as to several other Derby winners, and it 
 was generally believed that Bloomsbury was a 
 four-year-old. He did but little afterwards. 
 
 The year 1840 was noted as the first year that 
 the London and South- Western Railway proposed 
 to carry visitors to the great race. It was announced 
 that the railway would carry passengers to Kingston 
 from Vauxhall or Nine Elms, as the terminal 
 station was then called, where four-horse coaches 
 would be in readiness to convey passengers on to 
 the course. The charge for tickets, issued three 
 days previously, was one guinea, which also was to 
 
42 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 include the return to London via Kingston. I went 
 in a cab to Nine Elms at twelve o'clock, again in 
 holiday costume, but not so outrageously lotid as in 
 the previous year, when, to my annoyance and 
 disgust, I found a crowd of over a thousand persons, 
 vastly indignant at beholding an announcement 
 posted up that ' No more trains would start that day.' 
 No provision had been made for a break down, and 
 thus the people were left behind. The crowd was 
 momentarily augmented, and, of course, I felt 
 powerless to help myself in so great an assemblage. 
 Suddenly I perceived a young gentleman arrive in 
 a two-wheeled cab (Hansoms were not then in- 
 vented) who was as disappointed and angry as my- 
 self I proposed that if a bargain could be made 
 with his cabman, 1 would join him as far as Kingston, 
 where we were assured coaches would be waiting 
 to convey us on to the course. We agreed to give 
 ' Cabby ' a sovereign to drive us to the town. The 
 day was lovely and we were hopeful, but on arriving 
 at 1.30 we fotcnd no coaches or other conveyances to 
 carry us further. Here was a pretty fix for us 
 to be in ! However, I was young, hearty, and 
 fleet of foot in those days, and, although my friend 
 decided to go no further, I determined to run and 
 walk towards the Downs, trusting to my luck to 
 find some conveyance on the road. After running 
 about a mile, I heard wheels behind me, and saw 
 an old-fashioned yellow post-chaise, with post-boy 
 in blue jacket and white silk top hat, riding with 
 a pair of good trotting horses spanking along. 
 
A DANGEROUS RIDE 43 
 
 Now, I thought to myself, is my chance. I got 
 near to the centre of the road, when, just as the 
 carriage passed me, I rushed forward and clutched 
 hold of the springs behind, which assisted me 
 greatly. A slight hill caused the horses to go some- 
 what slower, when I fancied I might make a 
 desperate, but most dangerous, attempt to spring 
 up, and place my feet on the hind axle-tree. This 
 was protected by a spiked iron bar, yet I dex- 
 terously made an effort to place my toes somewhere 
 between the spikes, and eventually succeeded. 
 The horses dashed on in a dense cloud of dust, 
 whilst I clung, like grim death, to the springs, and 
 held on in my hazardous position. When we 
 arrived at the town of Epsom, some wanton boys 
 shouted ' Whip behind ! ' calling attention to my 
 frantic efforts. As was common in such carriages 
 at that time, there was a small circular window at 
 the back of the chaise, which enabled the gentlemen 
 inside to see me. They called to the post-boy to 
 stop, and ordered me down. I had already per- 
 formed that feat, and took off my hat, thanking 
 them for my ride of over three miles. I then rushed 
 off to the Downs. The Derby was timed for three 
 o'clock, it was then about 2.40. I fortunately met 
 a cab returning from the course, and told the driver I 
 would give him five shillings if he drove me there 
 in time to see the race. To this he agreed, when 
 he dashed over the Downs, bumping along as hard 
 as his horse could go, pulling up at the back 
 of the stand whilst the crowd were shouting 
 
44 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 'They're off!' I pushed my head between some 
 of the crowd, and distinctly saw the horses coming 
 round Tattenham Corner, and, amidst the shouts of 
 the mass of spectators, found that ' Amato ' had 
 won. I then discovered that I was in a most dis- 
 reputable state, being smothered with a coating of 
 dust, my coat was white, my face steaming with 
 perspiration, grimed with road dust. I was too glad 
 to steal away and get back to London as soon as 
 possible, but I had gained my end, / had seen the 
 Derby, and determined, if I lived another year, I 
 would leave nothing to chance, and would ride my 
 own horse to the race. 
 
 The next year's Derby was memorable as being 
 won by a rank outsider, yet I enjoyed my visit im- 
 mensely. I rode my nag from home the day before, 
 to Gerrard's Cross, sleeping at the house of an old 
 friend, a thorough sportsman and successful steeple- 
 chase rider. After an early breakfast we rode to 
 Kingston to luncheon, and from thence steadily on 
 to the course. At this time the horses started at 
 ' The Warren,' which is some distance from the 
 present place, where the field paraded and cantered 
 before the ' start.' We were much pleased with all 
 the runners, especially with the favourite, Launcelot, 
 ridden by Bill Scott. My friend, who was an 
 excellent judge of a horse, whilst commenting on 
 the starters, pointed out a little compact, bright bay 
 horse, asking me ' what I thought of him ? ' I said, 
 ' He's only a pony, and will never get up the hill.' 
 He replied : ' That horse will win to-day. I never 
 
LITTLE WONDER'S DERBY 45 
 
 saw a horse sent to the post in such perfect con- 
 dition and bloom in my Hfe ; and, unless I am much 
 mistaken, he'll wear 'em all down if he gets a good 
 start.' On examining him more closely, I began to 
 think my friend was justified in his opinion. You 
 could see your face in the brightness of his skin, 
 and his muscles stood out like knots of iron, his 
 sinews and feet were perfect, he had a sweet temper, 
 walking and cantering like a gentleman. This was 
 Little Wonder, belonging to W. Forth, who had 
 another horse, a nameless one, in the race, known 
 as the ' Solace colt,' which he intended to ride 
 himself, placing Macdonald on Little Wonder, 
 which warranted the public in putting their money 
 on the Solace colt, who started at 20 to i, whilst 
 odds of 40 to I were laid against his companion. 
 Launcelot, the favourite, who was a beautiful colt, 
 and in the best possible condition, stood at 5 to 2 
 against. The race is easily described, for as soon 
 as they started Little Wonder galloped away, 
 and when rounding Tattenham Corner forged ahead, 
 and was never caught. Bill Scott striving his utmost 
 to reach him with Launcelot, who was second. 
 This was also a most noticeable Derby, as it was 
 the only one at which her present Majesty ever 
 attended. She was accompanied by Prince Albert, 
 who had promised to present a gold-mounted 
 whip to the rider of the winner. Macdonald was 
 called up to the Royal Stand, and received the much 
 coveted prize. He was considered to be a butcher 
 on any horse he rode when necessary, but in this 
 
46 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 instance hard measures were unnecessary. It should 
 be stated that Little Wonder stood only 14.3 hands 
 high. Some years afterwards, when commenting 
 on this race, ill-natured people always asserted that 
 Little Wonder was not a four-year-old, but was Sijive- 
 year-old\ The horse had only appeared once before, 
 and, I believe, only ran once or twice afterwards. 
 For some years after I rode my horse to Kingston 
 the night before the race, stopping once or twice on 
 the road for refreshment ; the distance was nearly 
 fifty miles from Aylesbury. After the race I was 
 accustomed to ride into London, enjoying a few 
 days' stay there, and returning home by the end of 
 the week. It is not generally known that at that 
 time the Derby was run on the Thursday, and only 
 changed to Wednesday when it was found to be 
 very unfair to mares who ran for the ' Oaks ' 
 on Friday, which practically prevented them from 
 running, without a day between the races ; so that 
 the authorities changed from Thursday to the 
 Wednesday, thus giving a chance for a mare to run 
 for the two events. 
 
 There are probably very many visitors to 
 Epsom who could give their experiences of chances 
 thrown away on races. Yet I cannot refrain from 
 mentioning a very strange fatality, and, I may 
 so term it, a silly refusal to avail myself of a really 
 good ' tip ' for this great race. Once, when at the 
 Haymarket Theatre on the eve of the Derby, I left 
 the auditorium and strolled into a bar on the 
 opposite side of the street for my glass of 
 
BETTING HOUSES 47 
 
 bitter, when I was accosted by a friend whom I 
 happened to know very well. This was no other 
 than 'Charley Boyce,' the jockey. After some 
 Sfeneral conversation he asked me what horse I 
 thought would win to-morrow. I said, ' Of course, 
 the favourite, Hobbie Noble.' He replied : ' I 
 can give you the greatest certainty possible, your 
 horse can't win. If you will be guided by me, you 
 will put 5/. on Daniel O'Rourke ; you may 
 depend upon it, he will be first past the post.' To 
 this I demurred. He said, ' I might just as well go 
 home with a hundred pounds in my pocket as not. 
 You can get 20 or 25 to 1 about him, and if you 
 won't have a fiver, have just one sovereign, as there 
 are plenty of houses near here that will doit.' It 
 should be noticed that at that period more than 
 half the houses, whether public bars, hairdressers, 
 tobacconists, confectioners, &c., &c., were all 
 betting houses ; and it was the existence of these 
 places, which had sprung up all over London, that 
 compelled the Legislature to pass the Act for sup- 
 pression of list betting. I foolishly refused to take 
 Charley's ' tip,' and retired to my friend's house at 
 Roehampton, where I was staying. We had 
 chartered an omnibus to take us on to the course — 
 there were twelve of us — and we agreed to have a 
 draw, putting down los., viz. — 5/. for the first and 
 i/. for the second. It was surprising to me that I 
 drew Daniel ff Rourke ! Such was my prejudice 
 against the horse, that I sold him for lo^-., the 
 amount I had ventured. The race has been so 
 
48 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 fully described that it is unnecessary to say more 
 than that Daniel won easily enough, ridden by W. 
 Scott ; an unknown horse, Barbarian, was second ; 
 Hobble Noble third ; and Chief Baron Nicholson 
 fourth. This was, indeed, a sensational Derby, 
 especially as to the second horse, who, if he had 
 won, would have landed an unparalleled coup. 
 I don't know if he ever was heard of in the ring, 
 excepting at some hazardous chance of 50 or 100 
 to I. I heard that he arrived on the morning of the 
 race by rail, was taken out of the truck, and led on 
 to the course in all his dust and dt'shabillL^ after his 
 long journey from Ireland. He was saddled, his 
 jockey mounted, and was not even recognised, 
 except by his owner and friends, and started as an 
 unknown competitor, I saw him after the race, and 
 thought him a splendid colt. 
 
 As I neglected winning my hundred pounds, I 
 must recount my extraordinary luck and judgment 
 afterwards in selecting a winner of this classic race. 
 At one of the meetings of the Aristocratic Steeple- 
 chases over my farm at Aylesbury, after the 
 Stewards' dinner, the conversation turned as to the 
 Derby. This was about the middle of March, and 
 I was asked who I thought would win that race. I 
 replied ' West Australian,' when one of the ' 'Varsity ' 
 men present offered me 50/. to 4/. — i2|to i against 
 him, which I at once accepted, when Captain 
 
 K , who was present, said I was foolish, as he 
 
 would lay me 60/. to 4/., 15 to i, which I booked, 
 thus closing my little book for the race. The horse 
 
RUNNING REIN'S DERBY 49 
 
 soon bewail to rise in the bettinof, and about a 
 fortnight before the races he had advanced to 5 to i. 
 As I stood to win no/, to 8/., I therefore deter- 
 mined to make myself safe, so with a sporting 
 parson, who was an old friend of mine, I laid 40/. 
 to 8/. against the horse. I thus stood to win 70/. 
 to nothing. Needless to say West Australian 
 won. I was so delighted that on the following 
 Saturday, on seeing the reverend gentleman, I 
 gladly gave him a cheque for 40/. Such was my 
 terrible luck that I have never, from that day to 
 this, received my 1 10/., or a single farthing of it, 
 so that instead of receiving my 1 10/., my banking 
 account was 40/. the less. I then determined never 
 again to stake more than 5/. on any race, and I 
 have kept my word. ' Sic transit gloria mundi.' 
 
 It may interest some of my readers to mention 
 one or two singular circumstances which are not 
 generally known on the ' Running Rein ' case, when 
 it was proved that the horse was a four-year-old, 
 and, although he had won, the race was given to 
 Colonel Peel's Orlando, who was second. The 
 conspirators, led by Goodman Levi, and others of 
 the Hebrew fraternity, had arranged to win with 
 another four or perhaps five-year-old horse, 
 named Leander, who they had backed heavily, 
 when, on rounding Tattenham Corner, he was 
 knocked over, and broke his thigh. The poor 
 brute was killed, and the same evening was buried 
 near the course. After the ' Running Rein ' trial, 
 and the jury had given the race against him, it was 
 
 E 
 
5° 
 
 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 deemed advisable to exhume Leander, and so 
 verify the reports about him, when, on his exhuma- 
 tion, it was discovered that his lower jaw had been 
 sawn off and carried away ! so that all proof of his 
 age had been destroyed. I have been told that the 
 conspirators had arranged that if the horse had won 
 he was to have been sent off immediately after the 
 race to Gravesend, where a steamer was in readi- 
 ness to take him out to sea, to be there killed 
 and thrown overboard, so as never to have been 
 seen again ; but the accident prevented the scheme 
 from being carried out. 
 
51 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Recollections of the Cup Day at Ascot — My ride from home — The 
 Queen, Prince Consort, and the Emperor of Russia : interesting 
 conversation — The Countess of Albemarle's carriage — The Earl, 
 Master of the Horse, wins with his son of Defence, beating Attila — 
 Delight of the crowd — The Emperor's promise to present the Ascot 
 Cup in future — Establishment of the Cssarewitch Stakes — The 
 Defence colt called the ' Emperor ' — Wins the vase the following 
 year — Graceful act of the Earl : presents the vase to her Majesty 
 the Queen, and the horse to the Czar — My next 'Ascot' — Dead- 
 heat between Buckstone and Tim Whiffler. 
 
 There is to me something; fascinating in the 
 recollection of a sporting event, which, from its 
 especial singularity, has impressed itself on my 
 mind ; and although I have had some curious 
 experiences of early Derbys, I believe that those 
 I am about to relate of early Ascot Cup days are 
 none the less pregnant with interest. The year 
 1S43, which was the next to that when Attila won 
 the Derby, was made memorable by the visit of 
 the Emperor of Russia, and, I think, the King of 
 Saxony, with other illustrious personages, to the 
 Queen and Prince Albert, and who attended at Ascot 
 Heath to see the race for the Cup. An immense 
 concourse of people attended. I rode my horse all 
 the way from Aylesbury and back again the same 
 night — a distance of seventy-five miles. I left 
 home about 7 a.m., after a hearty breakfast, and 
 
52 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 arrived on the Heath a little after one o'clock, 
 having baited at High Wycombe, and I rode into 
 my yard about twelve o'clock the same night, having 
 stopped again for an hour at High Wycombe. 
 After I had seen the finish of the two races 
 preceding the Cup, like everyone else I was 
 desirous of witnessing the struggle for the great 
 event. The course was cleared, when I found 
 myself separated from some friends, and attempted 
 to cross the course, but the police forced me to 
 return, and I was ignominiously relegated to the 
 rear of the crowd opposite the Grand and Royal 
 stands and the winning post. I, however, managed 
 to push partly through, and found myself close to 
 an old-fashioned green travelling chariot, which was 
 placed in the first row, and was occupied inside by 
 a benevolent-looking elderly lady. The carriage 
 commanded a view of the Royal box and its 
 occupants. I had the assurance to step on to the 
 hub of one of the forewheels, and to hang on to the 
 leather braces of the C springs. I, however, raised 
 my hat, and apologised to the lady, hoping I might 
 be permitted to stand there. She, in the kindest 
 possible manner, gave me permission to do so. A 
 gentleman was on the box seat, with whom she 
 conversed, and as the horses were taking their pre- 
 liminary canter, and were nearing the Royal Stand, 
 she said, ' Here comes our colt ; the rider in green. 
 My lord thought we ought to run one this year, but 
 he has no chance whatever of winning. The colt 
 is almost untried, and only three years old. but 
 
LORD ALBEMARLE'S COLT WINS 53 
 
 we thought, out of compliment to her Majesty and 
 her visitors, we would start him.' On referring to 
 my card, I found it was ' Lord Albemarle's Colt by 
 Defence,' unnamed. I had therefore been talking 
 to the Countess, and could well understand her 
 remarks, as the Earl was Master of the Horse, and 
 it was only natural that he should be expected to 
 run a horse in the presence of such distinguished 
 spectators. Soon after the start it was observed 
 that the colt was running strong and well ; and I 
 found that the butler and footman were placed on 
 the roof of the carriage to view the race, and inform 
 her ladyship how the colt was going. I began to 
 feel as anxious as though I had a large stake on 
 him, as they called out their views of the running 
 on the far side of the course. The horses were 
 invisible to me, so I only knew from the remarks 
 of the servants what was happening. ' Attila is 
 last, my lady ; the colt is alongside the leaders ; 
 they can't shake him off; now they are Hearing the 
 bend, now they are in the straight. He is still with 
 'em, he's taking the lead, my lady — he's a length 
 ahead,' whilst the shouting was terrific, and the 
 excitement greater than I ever saw at any race, 
 when the ' Colt by Defence ' struggled gallantly 
 home, and won. I congratulated the Countess, and 
 thanked her for her courtesy, and then left, as I 
 wanted to see the ovation. The colt was led up to 
 the Royal Stand, when the Queen and Prince, with 
 their illustrious visitors, congratulated the Earl of 
 Albemarle on his success. 
 
54 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 This Cup Day became a great historic event in 
 the racing world, as the Tzar promised, if he were 
 permitted, to provide the Gold Cup at his own cost 
 annually. Consent being given, the prize was called 
 the ' Emperor's Vase,' and for many years the Tzar 
 bore the expense of the trophy for that race until the 
 breaking out of the Crimean War, when his gift 
 was withdrawn, and the prize resumed the old name 
 of the 'Ascot Gold Cup.' Yet, although the 
 ' Vase ' ceased to be the prize, his visit is com- 
 memorated by the great Handicap at Newmarket, 
 the ' Cresarewitch,' which still perpetuates the 
 memory of his Imperial visit to Ascot. The sequel 
 was remarkable. I am not quite sure if my dates 
 are correct, but, if my memory serves, the next 
 year, which, of course, was the first of the 
 ' Emperor's Vase,' the Queen and Prince being 
 again present, the ' Colt by Defence,' then called 
 the ' Emperor,' was brought out, and, to the 
 surprise of every one, his owner more than any- 
 body else, won the race. The excitement caused 
 by the struggle reached a climax when the Earl 
 handed over the trophy as a present to her Majesty, 
 and performed an equally graceful act, as a 
 memento not only of the Emperor's visit, but as a 
 return for his handsome gift, when he sent over 
 his colt, the ' Emperor,' to St. Petersburg, as a 
 present to his Imperial Highness, and in acknow- 
 ledgment of his patronage of the British Turf. 
 The horse was added to the Imperial stud, where 
 he afterwards proved of distinguished service. 
 
BUCKSTONE AND TIM WHIFFLER 55 
 
 Another of my visits to Royal Ascot was made 
 memorable to me by the dead heat for the Cup 
 by Buckstone and Tim Whiffler. The excitement 
 of the public at this event was, perhaps, greater 
 than when the ' Colt by Defence ' won the Emperor's 
 Vase. The race was very severe, and it was 
 generally thought that an arrangement would be 
 made to divide the stakes, as the course then was 
 nearly three miles and a half, but as the principal 
 portion was the historic Gold Cup, that alternative 
 was impossible. I thought it would be more interest- 
 ing to see the struggle from the bend, and thus 
 form a better opinion of the relative merits after 
 they had done their three miles. The deciding 
 heat was a race from end to end, and it bade fair 
 to repeat the former result — another dead heat. 
 When they passed me there was not a pin to choose 
 between them. Whilst I hurried up the course 
 behind them it was impossible, a hundred yards 
 off, to say which had won. Tim Whiffler, how- 
 ever, was beaten by a length. The latter had been 
 much fancied, as he had won the Chester Cup, 
 and Buckstone had acquitted himself handsomely 
 during the spring. This time I did not ride all the 
 way to Ascot and back, as it was too much both for 
 myself and 'conveyance,' who was left comfortably 
 in the stable. 
 
56 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Parliamentary elections — Origin of the representation of the people — 
 Alfred the Great and the Witanagemot — Ancient franchises — The 
 Potwaller — Borough of Aylesbury — Addition of 'The Hundreds' — - 
 John Webb, ninety-six years old, the last of the Potwallers — 
 Customs at the nomination — Dinners — Conveyances — Duration of 
 polling period — A candidate's ' little bill ' — The poll — The voters' 
 dinners : daily bill of fare — General Election of 1784 — Curious 
 incident^ — The great Aylesbury case, Ashby v. White — Its effect. 
 
 Amongst the events which affect the Imperial 
 interest of the kingdom, none have a greater in- 
 fluence than the election of members of the House 
 of Commons. The history of the representation of 
 the people has been often recorded, and various 
 accounts have been given of the practice of Parlia- 
 mentary elections. Most writers have held, and I 
 think with great reason, that the first notice of a 
 real Parliament, that is to say, of the expression of 
 the wishes of the people, was in the Saxon ' Wita- 
 nagemot,' which undoubtedly existed, and was 
 consolidated by Alfred the Great ; but it was not 
 till some centuries afterwards that the election for 
 the assembly was put on a legal footing. Lord 
 Beaconsfield once said to me in a conversation I 
 had with him, that the earliest recorded parliaments 
 were almost entirely chosen by the universal 
 suffrage of the resident people. I concurred in his 
 lordship's opinion, because it was within my own 
 knowledge that, in many boroughs, the old franchise 
 
THE FRANCHISE— POTWALLERS 57 
 
 of the ' Potwaller ' still existed, in my own town of 
 Aylesbury that franchise being very highly prized. 
 There is still one voter living (a.d. 1897) who retains 
 the privilege — I refer to Mr. John Webb — who is 
 ninety-six years of age. Such voters were, along 
 with many others, disfranchised by the Reform Bill 
 of 1832, but the then existing ' Potwallers ' were 
 allowed to retain the franchise. This ancient 
 privilege was granted exclusively to certain towns, 
 and it was claimed and used by ' every man who 
 boiled his own pot,' that is, who had a hearth of his 
 own. It often happened that two men occupied one 
 house, but if the tenement was divided so as to admit 
 of each tenant occupying separate rooms, and each 
 was independent of the other, they had the privilege 
 of voting separately at the election of a member for 
 Parliament. It has often puzzled many writers to 
 understand how boroughs of present insignificance 
 that were disfranchised by the Reform Bill of '32 
 ever became entitled to send members to Parlia- 
 ment. They must, even at their establishment, 
 have been comparatively small places, when towns 
 of much greater importance were unrepresented. 
 It must not, however, be inferred that because 
 such towns are now unimportant they were not 
 places of some consequence centuries ago. They 
 generally then represented a distinguished family 
 or personage in the State. But I am not writing in 
 defence of decayed boroughs, or a history of the 
 Parliaments of England. Accept my observations 
 rather as a slight introduction to some remarkable 
 chronicles which I have been personally enabled 
 
58 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 to preserve. I have lived in an atmosphere of 
 continual Parliamentary strife in my native county 
 of Bucks, that 'great historic county,' so named by 
 its distinguished member, ' Benjamin Disraeli.' 
 
 Bucks has been the seat of many a severe party 
 struggle ; and though it contained, before the Reform 
 Bill of '32, two or three real pocket boroughs, yet 
 the other boroughs, and the county itself were often 
 the scenes of close contests, and of dramatically 
 varied successes. So different were the practices of 
 old Parliamentary elections to those of the present 
 time, that electors nowadays feel a difficulty in 
 realising what the system of choosing a represen- 
 tative was, before the introduction of the ballot. 
 That system carried with it the old ' nomination 
 day,' and the poll was taken by open voting ; while 
 the poll for boroughs could remain open for a week, 
 and that for counties to fourteen days. I well 
 remember the last election before the passing of the 
 1832 Reform Bill, when the poll for the borough 
 and hundreds of Aylesbury was kept open five 
 days, and that for the county for the same period. 
 They were closed because the unsuccessful candidate 
 resigned when he saw his efforts were hopeless. 
 The nomination day was a most important factor in 
 the contest, and was the scene of tremendous uproar 
 and confusion, as all the inhabitants had a right to 
 be present, and they expressed their opinions in 
 no uncertain manner. Personal encounters often 
 occurred, and the speeches of proposer, seconder, 
 and candidates were frequently made in dumb show. 
 But where a speaker was generally popular, there 
 
CHAIRING THE MEMBERS 59 
 
 was, I need scarcely say, no trouble In obtaining 
 silence. Colours, or ' favours ' as they were called, 
 were freely given away and worn. The bands 
 brayed their loudest, and after the poll was de- 
 clared, and the member duly elected, the ' chairing ' 
 of the member took place. The chair itself was 
 a very elaborate piece of furniture. It was like a 
 modern drawing-room easy chair, was covered with 
 silk in the colours of the candidate, and loaded with 
 bows of satin. The bearers were stout fellows, 
 who were well paid for their services, although they 
 were invariably enthusiastic supporters of the party. 
 There were generally eight of them. They raised 
 the honourable M.P. upon their shoulders, and 
 carried him round the town. The band led the 
 way, followed by a strong body of stavesmen, who, 
 with stout forks-tails for batons, surrounded ' the 
 chair,' to protect the distinguished occupant against 
 the attacks of the defeated party. It was during 
 this perambulation that the hostility was wont to 
 break out, and I have seen desperate fights, with 
 more than a hundred combatants engaged, and in 
 many instances, although the band loudly pro- 
 claimed ' See the conquering hero comes,' the M.P. 
 was ejected from the chair, and pitched headlong 
 into the crowd. Like most public events in England 
 the proceedings culminated in a dinner, which was a 
 scene of excessive conviviality. I am enabled, from 
 documents in my possession, to give an electioneer- 
 ing bill at the contest in 1818 for the borough and 
 hundreds of Aylesbury. This will tend to show 
 how expensive these elections were. The candi- 
 
6o 
 
 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 dates at the said election were Lord Nus^ent and the 
 Hon. Charles Compton Cavendish, some years after- 
 wards member for the county, and created first Lord 
 Chesham, the old members, and Mr. William 
 Rickford, the banker. Mr. Cavendish (who lost the 
 election) and his friends occupied the principal inn 
 in the town, the ' White Hart.' The committee 
 met in March, and in three months they ran up a 
 bill for 287/. 2^. 2d. There was in addition an 
 'executive committee,' whose little bill (all for eating 
 and drinking) amounted to loS/. 45. dd., whilst the 
 bill for the refreshments of the loyal and indepen- 
 dent voters was as follows : — 
 
 First Day's Poll, June 24, 1818 
 
 25 breakfasts, solicitors, clerks, iS:c. 
 40 freeholders, solicitors, clerks, &c. 
 384 freeholders, dinners, clerks, &c. 
 52 freeholders, solicitors, clerks, &c. 
 
 Beer 
 
 Wine, port and sherry 
 
 Rum, brandy, &c. 
 50 stavesmen, breakfasts, dinners and beer 1 6 
 
 £ 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 5S 
 13 
 
 15 
 
 s. 
 
 17 
 
 o 
 12 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 5 
 
 d. 
 
 6 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 
 Second Day's Poll 
 
 ^-43 
 
 14 
 
 6 
 
 As before, but only 230 voters dined 
 
 . 176 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 Third Day's Poll 
 
 
 
 
 Only 120 voters dined . 
 
 • 95 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 Fourth Day's Poll 
 
 
 
 
 Only 25 voters dined . 
 
 • 30 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 ;^545 17 o 
 
 N.B. — I have previously published this account and the next, 
 and re-insert it, it being necessary to elucidate parliamentary 
 election customs. 
 
ELECTION BILL OF FARE 6i 
 
 There were, therefore, 759 voters entertained 
 during the four days, although only 420 voted, so 
 the cost came to about i/. 6^. per head. On 
 the day of the declaration of the poll, and the 
 chairing of the successful candidates, it was 56/. it,s., 
 and for posting and baiting of horses 105/. 8^. S^-/. ; 
 the total, therefore, was 1,101/. 9^. T,d. The bill was 
 paid at once, and thought to be very moderate. 
 
 1 extract also the bill of fare for one day's dinner : 
 20 dishes of fish, 10 dishes of boiled fowls, 10 
 dishes of roast fowls, i boiled leg of pork and peas- 
 pudding, 2 boiled hams, 2 haunches of mutton, 
 6 geese, 10 pigeon pies, 3 dishes of boiled beef, 
 3 dishes of roast beef, 2 fillets of veal, i loin of 
 veal, 2 roast legs of pork, 2 forequarters of lamb, 
 
 2 dishes of roast turkey, i dish of boiled turkey, 2 
 dishes of roast pigs, 16 plum puddings, 60 custard 
 puddings, 20 fruit pies, to dishes of custards, fruit, 
 blancmange, jellies, &c. These were in the good old 
 times ! It must be mentioned in explanation of many 
 of these heavy items that, at that period, and until 
 the year 1832, all the polls were taken at one place, 
 and for the county at the county town, which was, 
 in many cases, more than thirty miles from the 
 residence of voters. I have seen the streets of 
 Aylesbury perfectly impassable from the crowding 
 of omnibuses, stage coaches, post-chaises, private 
 carriages, gigs, farm waggons, tradesmen's carts, 
 and other vehicles, which had been requisitioned for 
 the occasion. Yet all the inns and public-houses 
 were crowded, the yards and stables crammed, and 
 
62 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 the market square and principal streets filled with 
 horses and carriages that had set down the voters, 
 who were often compelled to sleep from home after 
 polling. It may be well imagined that it was 
 necessary to prolong the time for taking the poll, 
 when it may be mentioned, for example, that in the 
 county of Bucks voters had to be brought from the 
 little town of Olney in the north, and from Colne- 
 brook in the south, to Aylesbury in the centre, each 
 town being nearly thirty-five miles from the polling 
 place, with the roads frequently in a wretched 
 state. 
 
 In one of my books I have told a story which I 
 cannot forbear repeating. It was told me by a 
 very old voter, who vouched for its accuracy. At 
 the general election of 1784 there was a very severe 
 contest for the county of Bucks, the candidates 
 being the Hon. T. Grenville, Sir John Aubrey, 
 Bart., and Lord Verney of Claydon House. The 
 poll lasted fourteen days, and the acrimony with 
 which the contest was carried on may be imagined 
 when I state that, during the poll, a portion of the 
 furniture was brought from Claydon and publicly 
 sold by auction under the order of the Sheriff on 
 the market hill at Aylesbury. His lordship was 
 the popular candidate, and his seat was considered 
 safe on the fourteenth and last day of the poll, as in 
 the morning, about ten o'clock, Verney was about 
 thirty ahead of Aubrey. It is necessary to observe 
 that at that time, whether in borough or county, 
 if the constituency failed to poll one vote within 
 
COUNTY ELECTION ANECDOTE 63 
 
 the hour, the poll closed. The roads were so 
 bad that a large body of voters belonging to 
 the Ashridge and Ivinghoe district had to 
 travel at such a snail's pace it was impossible 
 for them to arrive before eleven or twelve o'clock. 
 The Verney committee, therefore, flattered them- 
 selves that their man was quite safe, as there was 
 only another quarter of an hour to elapse before 
 the poll closed. Whilst they were congratulating 
 themselves on their certain success, a violent sup- 
 porter of their party, and their agent for the 
 Buckingham division of the county, galloped into 
 the town, rushed to the hustings, and recorded his 
 vote for Verney ! He hurried at once to the com- 
 mittee room, and exultingly informed his friends 
 that ' he had just given a plumper for my lord.' 
 The chairman shouted out, ' By God, sir, you've 
 lost our election ! ' And so he had, as his vote kept 
 the poll open for another hour, when the Ashridge 
 tenantry arrived, and Lord Verney was defeated by 
 twenty-four votes ! This election impoverished the 
 finances of the Verney family beyond recovery. The 
 following is the state of the poll, which I copy from 
 a printed document in my possession : — 
 
 The Hon. T. Grenville .... 2264 
 
 Sir John Aubrey 1740 
 
 Lord Verney 1716 
 
 The poll began on Wednesday, April 21, and 
 closed on May 6, lasting, with the nomination, 
 sixteen days. It was not only eating and drinking 
 
64 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 which ruined many a county family by fighting 
 a ParHamentary contest. Bribery and corruption 
 were fertile snares of ruin to a candidate. In my 
 researches I have been surprised at the numbers of 
 petitions against the return of members, and the 
 enormous legal expenses incurred. I find that on 
 July 3, 1783, Lord Mansfield gave judgment in the 
 Court of Queen's Bench against Lord Rochester in 
 favour of Mr. Petre, respecting damages, in an 
 action for bribery in the election for Cricklade. Mr. 
 Petre recovered damages for 14,000/., besides the 
 costs of the suit, which were said to amount to more 
 than 10,000/. A curious case occurred in the 
 little borough of Wendover. The voters in this 
 small place fancied themselves aggrieved by some 
 action of Earl Verney's, and took the opportunity 
 to retaliate. His lordship had every reason to 
 apprehend that he should lose his seat for the 
 county of Bucks, and he therefore offered himself 
 and a Mr. Jolliffe, as candidates for the little 
 boroush. The voters were well aware of the sad 
 state of his private affairs, and consequently put up 
 their ' free and independent ' suffrages to the 
 highest bidder. A certain individual engaged to 
 find the candidates to contest the seat against his 
 lordship, and his interest, for the round sum of 
 6,000/ ! This was agreed to, and a gentleman was 
 employed to go down accordingly. He was met 
 outside the town, and the voters asked, ' What news 
 from the moon ? ' He answered that he had 
 brought from that satellite 6,000/, which was to be 
 
ELECTION EXPENDITURE 65 
 
 distributed amongst them by the borough agent. 
 They were then satisfied with the golden news, 
 chose the opposition candidates, and received their 
 cash ! That same year at Aylesbury the two 
 gentlemen who had brought the money down to pay 
 those who voted for Messrs. Halifax and Wrightson, 
 the successful candidates, from some misunder- 
 standing refused to pay the cash, and were mobbed 
 by a crowd who would not allow them to proceed 
 to London. Two days afterwards those who 
 voted for these gentlemen received twelve guineas 
 each, but the young voters were refused money by 
 either party, which embittered them vastly. Many 
 of the bills for ribbons, or favours, as they were 
 called, and publicans' accounts were disputed ; some 
 were paid one half, some a quarter, and some 
 nothing, to punish them for making such exorbitant 
 charges. 
 
 I have elsewhere given some account of the Bucks 
 election in 1784. I there stated that the Hon. 
 T. Grenvilleand Sir John Aubrey were elected. Lord 
 Verney being in a minority of only twenty-four after a 
 fourteen days' poll. I find that the latter petitioned 
 against the return ; but Sir John Aubrey, and 
 friends who were in the Government, managed to 
 adjourn the petition for more than two years, when 
 Lord Verney was compelled from want of means to 
 abandon the action. The petition was alleged to 
 have cost Sir John Aubrey nearly 50,000/. A 
 great mob attacked the ' George' inn, Mr. Grenville's 
 head-quarters ; they also, on the first day of the poll. 
 
66 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 pulled down the hustings, the poll booths, and de- 
 stroyed everything they could lay hands on. About 
 fifty of the rioters were captured and lodged in 
 Aylesbury gaol, where many of them caught the 
 spotted fever, and were set at liberty after the elec- 
 tion was over. They carried this frightful disease 
 all round the county, and many people died from it. 
 I have every reason to believe that the system of 
 bribery tainted the whole kingdom at Parliamentary 
 elections at that time, and up to the establishment 
 of the ballot the practice existed more or less in 
 many boroughs. The counties were too extended 
 for ' the man in the moon ' to utilise his blandish- 
 ments ; and the plan of closing the poll, in one day, 
 was a great blow to corrupt practices. From the 
 poll lasting for so many days, and voters being 
 brought, for many miles, from little country villages, 
 there was every opportunity to e.xercise the power 
 of gold. In the present day it is questionable 
 whether another form of bribery, now existing, is 
 not nearly, or quite, as pernicious as a money bribe 
 given to an individual. I allude to the gifts of large 
 sums for endowments of societies, the erection of 
 public libraries, baths and wash-houses, the presenta- 
 tion of public parks and recreation grounds, the 
 giving of prizes at agricultural, horticultural, and 
 other associations, and the like, and I question 
 whether they are not as potent as personal bribery 
 in the good old days. There is the still more whole- 
 sale and shameless promises to constituents of Acts 
 of Parliament, to carry out the vagaries of political 
 
MODERN SYSTEMS OF BRIBERY 67 
 
 faddists, which has of late become so prevalent. 
 The present system of candidates nursing a con- 
 stituency has one great advantage over the old, 
 it benefits the entire community, and friends and 
 foes alike can participate ; whereas in the past only 
 the recipient of ' hard cash ' was satisfied. There 
 was a very remarkable case which arose in my 
 native town, whose brief history I may be permitted 
 to give — I refer to the ' Great Aylesbury case of 
 Ashby versus White,' as it is called ; and although it 
 occurred more than a century before my existence, 
 I knew so many of the descendants of those who 
 figured therein, that I can somewhat vouch for the 
 authenticity of the events recorded. 
 
 This celebrated case, dragged through two 
 Parliaments, causing the dissolution of one, is an 
 important constitutional record. It was simply this. 
 A person named ' Mathew Ashby' in January 1701, 
 at the election for the borough of Aylesbury, 
 tendered his vote for Sir Thomas Lee, Bart., and 
 Simon Mayne, son of the regicide, and the Return- 
 ing Officers for the borough, of vv'hich William White 
 was one, rejected it. A petition was lodged in the 
 House of Commons by Simon Mayne and some 
 other inhabitants, complaining of the Returning 
 Officers' arbitrarily rejecting his vote, and he, 
 Mathew Ashby, stated that the officials in question 
 had been guilty of an illegal act, and proceedings 
 were thereupon taken against them. This case 
 ' dragged its slow length along ' interminably, and 
 on January 25, 1703, the Hou^e of Commons 
 
 !• 2 
 
68 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 resolved itself into a Committee of the whole House, 
 to take into consideration the Aylesbury case of 
 Ashby V. White. After a lengthy debate it was 
 resolved by 215 v. 97, 'That, according to the 
 known laws and usages of Parliament, neither the 
 qualification of any elector, nor the right of any 
 person elected, is cognisable or determinable else- 
 where than before the Commons of England in 
 Parliament assembled, except in such cases as are 
 specially provided for by Act of Parliament ' ; and it 
 was further resolved ' That Mathew Ashby, having, 
 in contempt of the jurisdiction of the House, com- 
 menced and prosecuted an action at common law 
 asrainst William White and others for not receivingf 
 his vote at an election of burgess to serve in Parlia- 
 ment for the said borough of Aylesbury, is guilty of 
 a breach of the privileges of this House.' Notwith- 
 standing this, in April, Ashby continued his action, 
 and at the late Bucks assizes obtained a verdict of 
 5/. against the defendants for refusing his vote. On 
 being carried to the King's Bench, and after a long 
 argument, the judges, by 3 to i, decided that the 
 action could not lie, and that the plaintiff Ashby 
 had no cause of action. 
 
 In the following October the House of Commons 
 was informed that new actions for five other voters 
 were brought against the Returning Officers, and the 
 House resolved ' That it was a breach of privileges 
 of the House, and that the five men should be com- 
 mitted to the gaol at Newgate, and that Mr. 
 Speaker issue his warrants accordingly, and that 
 
THE GREAT AYLESBURY CASE 69 
 
 Robert Mead, attorney-at-law, is guilty of high 
 contempt of the jurisdiction and privileges of the 
 House by prosecuting these actions against the 
 Returning Officers, and that Robert Mead should 
 be committed to the custody of the Sergeant-at- 
 Arms.' On November 8 the judges refused a writ 
 of Habeas Corpus, and the prisoners were conse- 
 quently remanded to Newgate. In February 1704 
 John Patey and John Oviatt, two of the Aylesbury 
 men committed to Newgate, petitioned for a Writ of 
 Error to bring their case before her Majesty. 
 The House of Commons petitioned the Queen 
 (Anne) not to grant their petition. On Febru- 
 ary 26, the House of Commons ordered that James 
 Montague, Esq., and five other attorneys be taken 
 into custody for aiding and abetting Patey and 
 others in their action against the Returning Officers 
 at Aylesbury ; and on the 27th the House of 
 Lords gave its protection to all the parties con- 
 cerned, as counsel, solicitors, &c., to the Aylesbury 
 men, and prohibited anyone from arresting, im- 
 prisoning, or in any way detaining James Montague 
 and others. On the 28th her Majesty expressed 
 her great regret to the House of Commons, and 
 was much troubled to find that they were against 
 her granting a Writ of Error, as against their 
 privileges, of which her Majesty would always be as 
 tender as her own prerogative, and that the House 
 might depend that she would do nothing to give 
 them just cause of complaint ; but that this matter 
 relating to the course of judicial procedure, being 
 
70 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 of the highest hnportance, her Majesty thinks it 
 necessary to weigh and consider very carefully what 
 may be proper for her to do in a thing of so great 
 concern. 
 
 On March 2 the Sergeant-at-Arms reported to 
 the House of Commons that he had taken 
 Montague, but that he had produced a protection 
 from the House of Lords ; that he had nearly taken 
 Letchmore, but that he had tied his sheets together, 
 and had slipped out at a back window two pair 
 high ; and he had also taken Harris, but the other 
 three. Page, Denton,, and Lee, were not to be 
 found. A conference was then held by the two 
 Houses, and after long arguments the House of 
 Commons resolved ' That the proceedings of the 
 House, in relation to the Aylesbury men, are in 
 maintenance of the ancient and undoubted rights 
 and privileges of the Commons of England.' On 
 April I the Ashby case was brought by a Writ of 
 Error before the House of Lords, and Sir Thomas 
 Trevor, Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, 
 delivered judgment, by which he overruled the 
 decision of the Court of King's Bench, and gave 
 judgment for Ashby. In December following, 
 Oviatt, Patey, and others petitioned the House of 
 Lords to remove them from the gaol at Newgate. 
 In February 1705 the House of Lords had passed no 
 less than six resolutions ' condemning the conduct 
 of the House of Commons, as being an obstruction 
 to justice, and contrary to " Magna Charta " ' ; 
 and the House of Commons passed resolutions 
 
PRIVILEGES OF THE COMMONS 7r 
 
 diametrically opposed to the House of Lords. On 
 March 14 the peers attended the Queen with a long 
 representation of the Aylesbury election case ; they 
 affirmed that the proceedings of the Commons were 
 wholly new and unprecedented, and it was the 
 birthright of Englishmen to seek for redress for any 
 injury in her Majesty's Courts of Justice. The 
 Queen, finding it an absolute necessity to put 
 an end to the session, and knowing there could be 
 no further proceedings in the matter, prorogued 
 Parliament the same day, and so rid herself and 
 others of the Aylesbury election business, which had 
 set Queen, Lords, and Commons at variance for 
 the past four years. 
 
 On April 5 Parliament was dissolved, and after 
 that nothing more was heard of the great Aylesbury 
 case of ' Ashby versus White.' I have thought 
 a condensed account of this often-quoted great 
 constitutional case would interest many persons 
 who felt some desire to follow the development of 
 our Parliamentary history, and have, in fulfilment 
 of my object, diligently searched many public 
 documents, but really am less indebted to them 
 than to my old friend, the late Mr. Robert Gibbs, 
 from whose pen I have gleaned a great part of 
 these details. I have been informed that, after all, 
 the real question was whether the Returning 
 Officers were justified in refusing Mathew Ashby 's 
 vote, under the plea that he had received parish 
 relief. However, this celebrated case is another 
 illustration of the great value of the House of Lords 
 
72 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 in standing up for the liberties of the people against 
 the arbitrary and unjustifiable tyranny of the House 
 of Commons. It may not be out of place to 
 mention that in many boroughs there was no 
 regular locality in or at which nominations took 
 place. I well remember seeing the last election 
 for Amersham, in 1832, when the two candidates, 
 Squire and Colonel Drake, stood on two very large 
 unhewn stones, outside the Market House, in the 
 public street, and were there proposed. At Ayles- 
 bury, up to 1802, the candidates were proposed on a 
 large tombstone in the churchyard ; after that year, 
 when the hundreds were added to the borough, the 
 nomination took place in the County Hall. At Old 
 Sarum and Grampound, inasmuch as there was but 
 one house in each of these boroughs, the members 
 were nominated and elected on a mound of earth 
 somewhere within the reputed parish boundaries. 
 
7^:> 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 An eccentric country gentleman — Egyptologist and astronomer — 
 Singular political career — Rural pursuits — His marriages — Estab- 
 lishment of prize gooseberry shows — Practices of exhibitors — 
 Names of noted gooseberries — Jas. Carter, landlord of the ' Bugle ' 
 inn — Teetotal festivities — Dr. Lee in excehis — Elihu Burritt — 
 Drunken orgies of the visitors to the Teetotal banquets — The 
 historic career of the Lee family — Their remarkable influence — 
 Admiral Smythe — Old Wiggs, the parish clerk — '^Cdes Hart- 
 wellianas' — The museum — Hartwell House, the seven years' resi- 
 dence of Louis XVIII. 
 
 Amongst the many gentlemen I have known and 
 been pleased to call my friends was John Lee, 
 LL.D., of Hartwell House, near Aylesbury. He 
 was an extraordinary character, and was known far 
 and wide for his benevolence, his eccentricity, and 
 his versatility. His whole career was marked by 
 changes of position in society, whilst his vagaries as 
 a politician, as a Doctors' Commons lawyer, and as 
 a country gentleman, were varied by his studies in 
 Egyptian antiquity, and other similar fields of 
 research. But his greatest achievements were in 
 the study of the heavenly bodies ; and, as an 
 astronomer particularly and scientist generally, he 
 was deservedly held in high esteem. His eccen- 
 tricities culminated in a sudden manifestation of zeal 
 on behalf of teetotalism, and his personal exertions 
 for those enthusiastic faddists, the total abstainers, 
 
74 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 led him into many extravagances, while his trustino-, 
 benevolent disposition made him the easy prey of 
 the designing members of the fraternity, who did 
 not hesitate to invade his household for weeks 
 together, whilst the branch societies and offshoots 
 obtained many a cheque under pretence of ' advanc- 
 ing the cause,' but to whom the funds went was only 
 known to the recipient. The learned doctor also 
 became a patron of ' vegetarianism ' and ' anti- 
 vaccination.' Notwithstanding his admiration of, 
 and intimacy with Mr. Robert Ceely, the eminent 
 authority, since Jenner, on vaccination, these ' fads ' 
 found a powerful supporter in him. As an anti- 
 Church-rate man he figured prominently, and after 
 passing for some years as a Tory country gentleman, 
 he suddenly turned his coat, and became a venomous 
 Radical, if it were possible that his truly charitable 
 mind was capable of expressing the violent 
 animosities fostered by this political party. The 
 doctor's person was as eccentric in appearance as 
 his costume. He was slightly above the middle 
 height, with a thin, haggard face, and sparse strag- 
 gling locks worn rather long. This singular figure 
 was generally clothed in a long blue coat with plain 
 brass buttons, a full white cravat, and a frilled shirt, 
 dark trousers, low shoes, tied with black ribbon, 
 and his head was surmounted with a tall chimney- 
 pot hat, often scant of nap. With all his loudly 
 expressed democratic opinions, he was every inch 
 an aristocrat, and proud of his lineage from the 
 Lees of Quarrendon and of Ditchley. His mother 
 
HARTWELL HOUSE 75 
 
 was the sister of the last baronet, Sir George Lee ; 
 she had married a Mr. Fiott, so that the learned 
 doctor was 'John Fiott,' LL.D., of Doctors' 
 Commons, London, and on the death of Sir George 
 he succeeded to the family estates in Bucks, Beds, 
 and Herts, and took the ancestral name of ' Lee,' 
 and came to reside at Hartwell House. This 
 stately mansion, a fine specimen of Elizabethan and 
 early Italian architecture, stands in a lovely park, 
 ornamented with grand trees, many noble specimens 
 of which were near the house, adding greatly to the 
 beauty of the park and grounds. In 1807 this place 
 was selected, by the Government of the day, as the 
 residence of Louis XVIII. (Louis le Desire) and 
 his family, with their Royal household, when driven 
 from France by the Emperor Napoleon, and there 
 the Court remained for seven years. The gardens 
 contained a bowlinor-o-reen S2ib te<jmiiie faai. The 
 beech trees overhanging it were fine specimens, 
 and the umbrageous walks surrounding the house 
 delightful. Well might the Royal family of France 
 part with their retreat with the deepest regret, as is 
 evinced by the carvings on some of the trees in the 
 park and grounds surrounding the house, such 
 as ' Toujours heureux,' 'Quel plaisir,' &c. The 
 French Queen died here, and on the return of the 
 King to France, her body was removed, and buried 
 at St. Denis, near Paris, in 18 14. 
 
 Late in life Dr. Lee married a most estimable 
 middle-aged lady, with whom he lived many years. 
 She died childless ; and a few years afterwards he 
 
76 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 married Miss Heath, who was nearly forty years his 
 junior. She survived him, and on her death his 
 property descended to his nephew. Colonel Edward 
 Dyke Lee, the present owner of Hartwell, and the 
 other properties, who resides at the mansion, and is 
 a most excellent, liberal-minded country gentleman. 
 Whilst giving this sketch of Dr. Lee, it occurs to 
 me to describe some characteristics of rural life. 
 
 Forty years ago, at Hartwell and thereabouts, 
 were the meetings of the ' Gooseberry Society,' 
 a show that was held at the hostelry near the 
 park, called the ' Bugle,' and a dinner afterwards, 
 at which the doctor presided, accompanied by 
 many London and country friends, with the lead- 
 ing farmers of the parishes of Hartwell and Stone. 
 There were many members of the society resident 
 in Aylesbury who invariably made a practice of 
 attending, and exhibiting the produce of their 
 gardens, myself among the number. This gather- 
 ing was much augmented on the verge of a Parlia- 
 mentary election for the borough and hundreds of 
 Aylesbury, these parishes being within the borough. 
 The chief members of the society were cottagers of 
 the two parishes, and the rivalry of the various 
 exhibitors of the ' Big Gooseberry ' was intense, 
 whilst the disappointment of the growers, as the day 
 of exhibition approached, was very amusing. One 
 would deplore the fact 'that his "Gunner"was busted,' 
 another that 'there was a crack in his "Peacock,"' that 
 his ' Wonderful ' had dropped off, or his ' London ' was 
 rotted. These were the names of the various goose- 
 
THE GOOSEBERRY SHOW •^'j 
 
 berries grown for their monstrosity, as weight, not 
 flavour, carried the day. The cultivation of these 
 fruits was even more amusing than their exhibition. 
 A tree was planted about two years previously, care- 
 fully manured and pruned, and when the eventful 
 year arrived, powerful manures were applied, and 
 the fruit thinned out till there were seldom more 
 than three or four berries left on the bush ; and it 
 may therefore be well understood that when a 
 'Gunner,' a ' Peacock,' or a ' London ' was busted, 
 how great would be the disappointment. The 
 weighing of the berries singly was watched with the 
 greatest anxiety and the keenest scrutiny, as the 
 prizes were awarded entirely by weight, and the 
 four colours, red, green, yellow, and white, each 
 received the coveted prizes, whilst there was a 
 premier prize of a copper tea-kettle for the grower 
 of the heaviest single berry in the show ; these 
 always weighed over 20 dwts., and I once remember 
 a red ' London ' reaching 27 dwts. ! The chairman, 
 Dr. Lee, with some of his ' teetotal ' and ' anti- 
 tobacco ' friends, drank the after-dinner toasts in 
 water, which was much lauded, as a very delicious 
 beverage, by the doctor, as the limpid, sparkling 
 drink came from a well-known spring, specially 
 protected with a stone covering, on which was 
 carved in Greek characters "Ap<a-Tov ju,£v u^fop, Water 
 is best. Yet it is sad to tell that, despite the presence 
 of the ' faddists,' the company in general smoked 
 pipes of tobacco till they were blackened, and instead 
 of washing down the taste of the weed with pure 
 
78 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 water, they preferred and drank Joe Carter's (the 
 host of the ' Bugle ') strong ale, besides wines and 
 spirits, till late in the evening ; many of them for- 
 cettino; the route to their own dwellinos, and makin"- 
 anything but a teetotal gathering. 
 
 As I before stated, when an election for the 
 borough was looming in the not distant future, this 
 Hartwell gooseberry show was a fertile source of 
 supposed bribery and treating, being within the 
 hundreds of Aylesbury, and most of the inhabitants 
 were amongst the worthy, the free, and the indepen- 
 dent electors. As it was very uncertain which way 
 Dr. Lee would vote, there were strenuous attempts 
 made by the rival parties to make the meeting a 
 success. In every autumn a monster assembly 
 favourable to ' teetotalism ' was held in the park, 
 and for nearly a week delegates from London and 
 other parts of England made a point of attending. 
 The mansion was converted into a sort of liberty 
 hall, open house being the rule, and plenty of 
 feasting took place, for it was remarked that 
 teetotallers were noted ' trenchermen,' and made up 
 by eating what they denied themselves of drinking. 
 Vegetarians throve here mightily, as they drank 
 alcoholic beverages, and the anti-tobacconists could 
 both eat meat and solace themselves with something 
 stronger than water. The meetings of these 
 societies began about noon, and lasted till nine or 
 ten o'clock at night. Bands playing, dancing, ' kiss 
 in the ring,' and rural sports going on well into the 
 dark : Joseph Carter's hostelry, the ' Bugle,' being 
 
TEETOTAL ORGIES 79 
 
 crammed with visitors the whole week, and a 
 general orgie became prevalent. When it is stated 
 that, in addition to all these antl-everything societies, 
 was affiliated the great demonstration of the ' Uni- 
 versal Peace Society,' with the champion advocate, 
 Elihu Burritt, the inspired blacksmith, and other 
 noted Americans, with a strong contingent of 
 whisky-drinking Scotchmen, evidently notteetotallers, 
 it may well be conceived that ' high jinks ' were the 
 order of the day. In fact, it was well known that 
 such a week of drinking and immorality as was 
 evoked by these gatherings was unknown elsewhere. 
 Some amusing stories are told of Joe Carter, 
 who was a favourite tenant of the doctor. It was 
 said that when Joseph paid his rent, his landlord 
 kindly asked him if his business at the ' Bugle ' was 
 prospering. Joseph replied that he regretted to 
 say that ' it was very bad indeed ' ; that, what with 
 his friends and visitors attending these meetings, 
 and what with the impressive speeches they heard 
 there, such an effect was produced on his customers 
 generally that they ceased to patronise him as 
 they used to do. This so gratified the doctor that 
 he said, ' Joseph, I am very glad indeed to hear it, 
 and therefore hand you back these three five-pound 
 notes, as some compensation for your loss of trade.' 
 Joseph departed serenely, thanking his landlord for 
 his kindly consideration. But the real facts were 
 these : The jolly host of the ' Bugle ' was noted for 
 his famous home-brewed beer, and always filled his 
 cellars, and even his outbuildings, with his nut-brown 
 
8o RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 beverage in anticipation of the Temperance festival, 
 and the stock of beer was invariably exhausted 
 after the second day, and the Aylesbury brewery 
 each succeeding day sent in a dray of twelve barrels 
 of beer to supply the deficiency ; whilst his wine 
 and spirit merchants provided extra stock, which 
 was always sent in the week before, and consisted 
 of at least twenty gallons of gin, besides rum, 
 brandy, and whisky, was exhausted by the end of 
 the second or third day. This surely was proof 
 enough of the great benefit conferred upon the 
 population by the attendance and speeches of the 
 Goughs, Reynoldses, and other enthusiastic speakers 
 at these meetings. 
 
 It happened that after one of the Parliamentary 
 elections, a petition was presented against the return 
 of the newly elected M.P. for bribery and treating. 
 Joseph attended before a committee of the House 
 of Commons to give evidence as to the feasting 
 of the electors at the ' Bugle.' He was a jolly, 
 rollicking fellow, with a rubicund face, well pim- 
 pled, and otherwise showing ' how oft the black 
 jack to his lips did go.' He was asked, ' If there 
 had been so little drinking at his house, how his 
 face had obtained that singular appearance ."" ' 
 Nothing abashed, Joseph replied ' that he had been 
 sleeping in London the last two nights, and that 
 certain inhabitants of the bed which he slept in had 
 worried him so that he had but little sleep, and they 
 had caused these abrasions and appearances on his 
 face.' This was said in the most deliberate manner, 
 
QUARRENDON CHAPEL 8i 
 
 and amidst roars of laughter, somewhat at the 
 expense of the O.C. who was examining him, from 
 both auditors and members of the committee. With 
 all his peculiarities Dr. Lee was a general favourite 
 with all classes, his benevolence and kindness of 
 heart endearing him to every one with whom he 
 was brought in contact. He, with the late Sir 
 Harry Verney, the worthy baronet who died in 
 1894 at the age of ninety-three, founded the Bucks 
 infirmary, and as a start, and by way of an example 
 to other landowners, he gave 1,000/. as a subscrip- 
 tion, and, as the work progressed, largely added to 
 his original donation. The ' Lees ' of Ouarrendon 
 were the ancestors of this Hartwell family. I have 
 elsewhere described the disgraceful state of the 
 parish church at Ouarrendon : the fine monu- 
 ments, which I well remember in the chancel, were 
 memorials of the ancient ' Lees.' Admiral Smyth, 
 in his ' ^des Hartwelliance,' published in 1864 — a 
 copy of which was kindly presented to me by the 
 author and Dr. Lee, 'with their compliments,' on 
 March 22 of that year — describes one of the monu- 
 ments as ' a costly sarcophagus of Sir Henry Lee, 
 with his effigy in gilt armour, decorated with the 
 insignia of the Garter, erected in 1597, and near 
 him was a fine altar tomb, with recumbent figures of 
 his father and mother upon it.' I have seen these 
 tombs in my youth sadly mutilated, and now (1894) 
 tittcrly gone. And I have been told that the quiet 
 slumber of death on their features, even then some- 
 
 G 
 
82 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 what defaced, so strongly attracted the admiration 
 of Sir Francis Chantrey, as he told Lord Nugent, 
 when visiting him at Lilies, which was near the 
 chapel, that he had borrowed from them his first 
 idea for the exquisite sleeping sisters in Lichfield 
 Cathedral. The late Dean Bickersteth had been 
 my vicar at Aylesbury for over twenty years, and 
 he showed the group to me with much pleasure 
 when I once visited him at the Deanery. The 
 sisters were the daughters of the Reverend W. 
 Robinson, their mother being a beautiful woman, 
 and the daughter of Dean Woodhouse, of Lichfield. 
 Whilst writing of Sir Henry Lee, I find that Ann 
 Vavasour was Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth ; 
 she was one of the family of Vavasour, who were a 
 great family, and whose ancestor came over with 
 William the Conqueror. He took his name, as 
 being the King's Valvasotcr, from holding land in 
 fealty, a degree then but little inferior to a Baron. 
 Neither the rank nor the station of this same Ann 
 Vavasour could preserve her from frailty, and on 
 that account her tomb at Ouarrendon is said to have 
 been desecrated and defaced by order of the bishop 
 of the diocese — Lincoln. Her shame and degrada- 
 tion were thus moderately commemorated : 
 
 Under this stone entombed lies a fair and worthy dame. 
 Daughter to Henry Vavasour, Ann Vavasour her name ; 
 She Hving with Sir Henry Lee, for love long tyme did dwell, 
 Death could not part them, but here they rest within one cell. 
 
 Sir Henry died in 1610. The above was copied by 
 the Lancaster Herald in 161 1, and the following 
 
TOMBS OF THE LEES 83 
 
 year he made a marginal note to the line, thus : 
 ' This tomb is since erased and pulled down, 16 12.' 
 Admiral Smyth, to whom I am indebted in the 
 main for the above, says : ' Under so open an 
 avowal Sir Henry Lee, the most chivalrous knight 
 of his day, and Sir Walter Scott's type of perfection, 
 may be dubbed a knight suits peur, though, alas ! 
 not sans rcprocke. He being buried at Ouarrendon, 
 and his wife and children at Aylesbury, is significant.' 
 In my ' Recollections of Old Country Life ' I have 
 described the wife's monument, dated 15S4, with 
 that of her children, and am tempted to make a 
 quotation here. Above the canopy there are these 
 lines : 
 
 If passing by this tomb thou dost desire 
 
 To know what in this marble shrine do lie. 
 The some of that which now thou dost require 
 
 This scleder verse to you will soon descrie. 
 
 Then follows this inscription, quite Spenserian in its 
 diction : the spelling, with its contraction of the 
 letter ' n,' is peculiar : 
 
 Entombed here doth lie a worthy dame. 
 
 Extract and born of noble house and blood. 
 
 Her sire. Lord Paget, hight of worthy fame. 
 
 Whose virtues cannot sink in Lethe's flood. 
 
 Two brethren had she, baros of this realm, 
 
 A knight her feere. Sir Henry Lee he hight. 
 
 To whom she bare three impes, which had to name 
 
 John, Henry, Mary, slain by fortune's spight ; 
 
 First two beig young, which caused their parets moe. 
 
 The third in flower, and prime of all her yeares. 
 
 All three doe rest within this marble stone. 
 
 By which the fickleess of worldly joyes appears. 
 
84 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 Good fried sticke not to strew with crimso flowers 
 This marble stone wherein her cTdres rest, 
 For sure her ghost lives with the heavely powers, 
 And guerdon hath of virtuous life possest. 
 
 The words ' he hight ' mean ' was his name,' and 
 ' her feere ' her companion or husband. The chil- 
 dren are called ' impes.' It had often astonished 
 me why they should have been interred in 
 Aylesbury Church, which was some three miles 
 from the family vault of the Lees of Quarrendon, 
 but the above story explains it. 
 
 Dr. Lee's attempts for a seat in Parliament, and 
 his political career, were very amusing. I fancy I 
 can see him now, in or about the year 1845, riding 
 through the market square at Aylesbury, in his old 
 phaeton drawn by one horse, and driven by his 
 eccentric, boozy coachman, Ben Monk ; the phaeton 
 decorated with a bower of laurels, and the doctor, 
 hat in hand, bowing to the right and left to ladies 
 in the first-floor windows, and followed by a crowd 
 of boys. He was proposed and seconded on the 
 nomination days for the borough, and also for the 
 county of Bucks — the polls were being held simul- 
 taneously. For the former he polled about 400 to 
 his opponent's 800 or 900, and for the county about 
 1,000 as against a little over 2,000. It was said 
 that he changed his colours from the Tories to the 
 Whigs, because Sir R. Peel had refused to revive 
 the baronetcy of the family in himself. He was, as 
 I have said, a great astronomer. In order to pursue 
 his study of the heavenly bodies, he had erected an 
 
THE QUEEN AN AGRICULTURIST 85 
 
 excrescence of an observatory, which rose from his 
 drawing-room window. His extensive stables were 
 turned into an Egyptian Museum, with huge figures 
 of Isis and Osiris, and immense stones with carved 
 hieroglyphics, sarcophagi, with mummy cases depict- 
 ing Egyptian manners and customs from the times of 
 the early Pharaohs, filling the stalls. I was honoured 
 by being introduced to Mr. J. Bonomi, the celebrated 
 Egyptian traveller, by the doctor, and with these two 
 and Admiral Smyth I spent many a pleasant hour. 
 The last named was a charming companion and a 
 very humorous acquaintance, fond of agriculture 
 and country folk lore. He delighted in walking 
 over my farm with me and talking with the labourers. 
 Amongst the rural celebrities of Hartwell was old 
 ' ^^'ggs>' the parish clerk. The admiral was fond 
 of quoting ' his wise saws and modern instances.' 
 Wiggs said he was not surprised at the Queen being 
 fond of farming, as in all her copper money she 
 caused herself to be shown ' as sitting on a cart- 
 wheel, with a dung-fork in her liand.' This was 
 Wiggs's description of Britannia on the Union Jack, 
 with the trident in her hand ! On the admiral re- 
 marking that some horses were idly eating their 
 heads off, he replied, ' Well, sir, I always bless their 
 mouths, and ours too, for if it was not for eating 
 and drinking, what would farming come to .-* ' The 
 admiral, when I had the opportunity of walking 
 with him, was to me the best of company, especially 
 when he got to his favourite subject. Ancient 
 Egypt. Whilst speaking of the manners and 
 
86 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 customs of this wonderful people, he mentioned that 
 the Egyptian ladies used scent and dye upon their 
 persons, and that at Hartwell there was a small 
 vessel, with some of the very scents and dye still in 
 it, more than 2,000 years old, but I cannot describe it 
 so well as he did. In '^des,' p. 185, he writes 
 as follows : ' The female choristers who attended 
 Pharaoh's daughter, on her espousals with Solomon, 
 and who gave title to the forty-fifth Psalm, are 
 shown on a sepulchral stela of Theban limestone, 
 curiously coloured, as smelling a lotus flower, and 
 that the Egyptian damsels were not unmindful of 
 the pomps and vanities of this world was evinced by 
 their fine linen, necklaces, precious stones, gold 
 chains, armlets, bracelets, anklets or bangles, false 
 jewels, enamels, studs, and earrings, of all of which 
 we have the fullest testimony.' Regarding the rich 
 network of bugles, or beads, which is so frequently 
 found enveloping mummies over their linen clothes, 
 the Admiral told me that there was a relic of the 
 same taste, prevailing at the Court of Yussuf, the 
 late Bashaw at Tripoli. The Bashaw, after an 
 evening with his songstresses and dancers, would 
 honour his guest (the admiral) as he left the castle, 
 by commanding a network of fragrant jasmines to be 
 thrown over his shoulders as a special mark of grace. 
 He says that a very material article of an Egyptian 
 lady's toilet was the scent-bottle, which contained the 
 preparation of antimony, oxide of manganese, or other 
 substances, to blacken the eyebrows and lids, and this 
 blacking still remains in use all over the Levant. 
 
THE HARTWELL MUSEUM 87 
 
 These unguents and perfumes were costly, odori- 
 ferous, and lasting. I was shown at the Hartwell 
 Museum a perfect little vase, made of so-called 
 alabaster, about four inches high, containing a portion 
 of brown matter, g-ivinaf out an unctuous smell, a 
 residue of some costly scented ointment. Such was 
 the skill of the Egyptians in the art of perfumery, 
 and so strong was the odour of the perfume, that the 
 scent still remained some thousands of years after. 
 The museum at Hartwell, which had been stocked 
 by the learned doctor, was a strange medley, con- 
 taining many interesting and valuable remains of 
 remote antiquity, mixed up with wax models of mon- 
 strous potatoes, gigantic gooseberries, huge speci- 
 mens of apples, and other garden produce grown by 
 cottagers on the estate. Amongst the pictures in 
 the mansion were some fine examples of Rembrandt 
 and Vandyke. So little did Dr. Lee respect the 
 amenities of his stately mansion, that when he built 
 that vile excrescence of an observatory on to his 
 state drawing-room window, the entrance to which 
 was through the principal apartments, finding that 
 some noble trees in the park somewhat obstructed 
 his view of the stellar world, he did not hesitate to 
 ruthlessly cut the trunks down halfway, and thus 
 ruined the most beautiful portion of the estate. My 
 intimacy with this interesting country gentleman 
 enabled me to make the acquaintance of many learned 
 gentlemen, in addition to Admiral Smyth and Mr. 
 Glaisher, of Greenwich fame, such as J. Bonomi, 
 the celebrated Egyptian traveller ; Pettigrew, the 
 
88 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 distinguished authority on mummies ; Dr. Buckland, 
 the geologist ; Gough, the teetotaller ; Elihu Burritt, 
 the champion of peace. When this worthy scientist 
 died, he bequeathed the livings of Stone and 
 Hartwell to the Royal Astronomical Society, so 
 that astronomical observations should be carried on 
 in these parishes. He was buried in the parish 
 church, and was regretted by all who knew him. 
 
89 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A prize farm — A Yankee fellow traveller — American and English 
 farmers compared — Turning the tables— An English farmei^s bill 
 of fare — A farmer's ' pretty turn-out ' — Discomfiture of the Professor 
 — Wheat-growing in England and the United States — The Pro- 
 fessor's apology. 
 
 I HAVE done my share of travelling during a long 
 and active life, and although I cannot say I have 
 ever told them, I have sometimes listened to what 
 are proverbially known as 'travellers' tales.' To 
 see ourselves as others see us — well, if the sight 
 is not always instructive, it seldom fails to amuse. 
 And especially is it diverting when the observer 
 happens to belong to the sort of traveller Dickens 
 had in his mind's eye when he invented, or adapted, 
 Count Smorltork. I am reminded in this connection 
 of an experience of mine, on a railway journey from 
 Worcester, about twenty years since, in associa- 
 tion with Mr. Charles Whitehead, who resides at 
 Barming, near Maidstone, in Kent, and who is one 
 of our highest authorities in fruit-growing and on the 
 insects which affect our crops. I had been appointed 
 with him as a judge of the farming of Worcestershire, 
 to award the prizes for the best cultivated farms in 
 the county. I believe the proprietor of the leading 
 county newspaper offered lOo/. as a first prize, and the 
 
90 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES- 
 
 Agricultural Society supplemented it with a second 
 prize of 25/., and as hop- and fruit-growing was 
 essentially a part of the cultivation of the county, Mr. 
 Whitehead was appointed with me. In the course 
 of our expedition we visited the farm of Mr. Charles 
 Randall, one of the most noted agriculturists of the 
 day, who resided near Evesham, and is, alas ! no 
 more. He was a charming, genial gentleman, and 
 was for many years one of the leading members of 
 the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society of 
 England. On visiting his farm we were most 
 hospitably entertained and detained to dinner, some 
 ladies and gentlemen of the neighbourhood being 
 invited to meet us. We were put up for the night. 
 We found the farm the perfection of good culture, 
 the live stock excellent, the most marked being the 
 sheep, for which Mr. Randall had a world-wide 
 reputation, as was evinced by the high prices 
 obtained for his rams at his annual sale. The house 
 stood on an eminence commanding a view of a fine 
 undulating country, and was surrounded with a 
 beautiful well-kept garden blazing with autumnal 
 flowers, everything around being replete with good 
 taste, and showing ample means of keeping the 
 house, grounds, and farm in a high state of cultiva- 
 tion. This farm adjoined the estate and mansion 
 of the Due de Nemours, Mr. Randall being manager. 
 To him we most unhesitatingly awarded the first 
 prize, the second going to a farm on the banks of 
 the river Severn, at or near Upton-on-Severn. I 
 have been rather particular in describing Mr. 
 
A YANKEE PROFESSOR gr 
 
 Randall and his residence from the circumstance I 
 am about to relate. 
 
 Whilst returning home, in the compartment of 
 the railway carriage, I encountered a remarkable- 
 looking elderly man with considerable conversational 
 powers, who was accompanied by his wife. There 
 were three other ladies in the carriage, and myself. 
 The gentleman was expatiating on what he had 
 seen since he had been in England. He informed 
 me that he was a Professor of Literature at a 
 university in Baltimore, U.S.A., and was desirous 
 of recording his views and opinions of England on 
 his return to ' Amerca ' (sic). Although his stay in 
 this country had been short, he had already obtained 
 much valuable information. I listened with amused 
 interest to his remarks, especially as I found he 
 was explaining the difference between the English 
 farmers and those of the United States, and com- 
 paring their superior position with that of the belated 
 Britisher. ' I can assure you,' he said, addressing 
 the lady passengers, ' that our farmers eat meat 
 three times a day.' At this I pricked up my ears, 
 and when he went on to state he found ours as a 
 rule had animal food scarcely once a week, and con- 
 sidered they lived luxuriously if they got meat once 
 a day, I could not resist joining in the conversation. 
 I assured the professor that our farmers could eat 
 meat four times a day if they wished, to which 
 declaration he gave a firm, but courteous denial. 
 We arrived then within a mile of Evesham station, 
 and Mr. Randall's house and QTounds became visible 
 
92 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 from the railway. When the learned professor caught 
 sight of it he called his wife's attention to it, as being 
 a most lovely residence, and as beautiful as any 
 he had seen in England. At this I was delighted, 
 and informed him that that was the residence of one 
 of his despised English tenant farmers ; that I had 
 had the pleasure during the past week of visiting him. 
 And although I could not quite give in full his bill 
 of fare for my dinner, which I had much enjoyed, 
 I thought it was as follows : ' Clear soup, salmon 
 and lobster sauce, two entrdes, a saddle of four-year- 
 old wedder mutton of his own breeding and feeding, 
 two brace of partridges, sweets made by the ladies of 
 the household, together with Amontillado sherry and 
 Moet's champagne ; whilst after dinner we had, as 
 was then the custom, a splendid dessert, with grapes 
 and peaches from his own garden, with the choicest 
 old port and Chateau Lafitte claret ; that we joined 
 the ladies afterwards with tea and coffee, and that I 
 played a rubber at whist, the ladies enlivening us 
 with music. The entertainment, I ventured to sub- 
 mit, was one that would compare favourably with a 
 Texas or Kentucky farmer of their highest grade. 
 The ladies in the carriage laughed heartily at the 
 professor's discomfiture, especially when I told him 
 that he had evidendy mistaken our agricultural 
 labourers for English farmers. The contrast was 
 more fully exemplified when we reached Evesham 
 station, as the lady American expressed her 
 highest admiration of a pretty ' turn-out,' a handsome 
 phaeton, with a pair of ponies driven by a young 
 
WHEAT, IN AMERICA & ENGLAND 93 
 
 lady, with her mother seated beside her, and a small 
 groom in simple livery attending on them. I 
 recognised my hostess, Mrs. Randall, and her 
 daughter, and apprised our Yankee travellers of the 
 fact that that was the equipage of the before-named 
 tenant farmer. The astonishment of the professor 
 may be conceived. I further informed him that I 
 myself was only a humble tenant farmer. As to 
 our agriculture, perhaps he was not aware that the 
 average crop of wheat per acre in the United States 
 from the superior tenant farmer never exceeded 
 from twelve to sixteen bushels, whilst that of the 
 inferior English agriculturist averaged a crop of 
 from twenty-eight to thirty-two bushels per acre, 
 and that I had grown on five acres the unprecedented 
 amount of eighty-two bushels per acre. The learned 
 professor having exchanged cards with me, we 
 parted. He, however, wrote to me afterwards, 
 thanking me for correcting the hurried opinions 
 which he had formed of the farmer and correspond- 
 ing classes from his cursory glance at England. I 
 am aware that Mr. Randall was scarcely a typical 
 specimen of the ordinary tenant farmer, but he was 
 one. At the time when farming was prosperous, 
 many of my neighbouring farmers kept a good table, 
 had a stock of choice wine, and rode a good horse 
 to hounds, and held their own against any others of 
 the community. 
 
 A great deal was said some time since about 
 farmers who had been living beyond their income. 
 It was urged that they had no business to ride to 
 
94 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 hounds, or keep a horse for the purpose. Those 
 who use these arguments are ignorant of the fact 
 that it is absolutely necessary that a horse be kept 
 for ordinary business purposes, and it may just as 
 well be a good one, that can be ridden with hounds 
 and driven to market, so as to take the chance of 
 selling him to advantage, as to be only of value to 
 go to plough, or grind corn, and turn the horse-churn. 
 It has been said also that the farmer's daughters 
 have no right to go to boarding school, and play 
 the piano, or to acquire other modern accomplish- 
 ments. Surely they have as much right to do this 
 as the daughters of the butcher or the baker, who 
 purchase the produce of the farm and supply the 
 household afterwards. When the whole nation is 
 being educated and taught all the ' ologies,' it would 
 be a sad reproach to the farmer who had from two 
 to three thousand pounds employed in his business, 
 if his sons and daughters could not hold their own 
 with others. 
 
95 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Hereford cattle — Early history of the breed — Report of the United 
 States Government — Grazing capabiHties — Quahty of beef— Curious 
 anecdote — Mr. Westcar, of Creslow — Foundation of the Smithfield 
 Chib — Introduction of the breed into the Midlands — Duke of 
 Bedford — Lord Berners — Remarkable cattle — Great value of 
 'Hereford' beef at Christmas — Beauty of the animals — Colour, 
 grandeur, and carriage — General aptitude to fatten. 
 
 Having been for many years an ardent admirer 
 and somewhat successful breeder of Shorthorns, I 
 have arrived at the conclusion that in some districts 
 there are various tribes of cattle which have become, 
 from continuous breeding, and very careful selection 
 of the fittest for the surrounding conditions, as 
 it were, indigenous to certain soils of this country ; 
 whilst the developing of special characteristics has 
 naturally fostered a prejudice in favour of the breed, 
 even to the detriment of others. This is well 
 known amongst breeders of Devons, and is still 
 more pronounced in relation to the Herefords. I 
 have never bred Herefords, but have been a 
 grazier and feeder of them for many years. I there- 
 fore can state most unhesitatingly that no breed 
 has a greater aptitude to fatten; and when placed in 
 rich pastures on a congenial soil, they lay on flesh, and 
 fatten, more readily than any breed in existence. 
 Some few years since the Government of the 
 
96 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 United States of America was desirous of obtaining 
 all the information available from every country in 
 Europe, of the various breeds of cattle, giving their 
 characteristics for milk and flesh production. They 
 entrusted me with the task of writing a paper on the 
 Hereford tribe. This gave me an opportunity of 
 gaining some very valuable and interesting infor- 
 mation in addition to what I already possessed of 
 this race of animals. It is necessary to state that, 
 as a rule, the Hereford is only sure of making a 
 fine carcass of beef in certain localities other than 
 in his own shire. The soil there seems excellently 
 adapted for breeding and rearing these cattle, and 
 only a limited amount of land in that district 
 is considered of sufficient quality for making such 
 beef as the Hereford ox is capable of producing. 
 Some years ago I visited the city of Hereford 
 on the occasion of the Easter fair. This affords 
 a sight that differs from anything of its class in 
 England. Thousands of cattle of this breed are 
 brought here, all of one type and colour, the latter 
 being a deep brownish red, with clear white faces 
 and bellies, a strip of white down the spine, white 
 appearing sometimes on other parts, and the tip of 
 the tail. No appearance of a shorthorn or any 
 other breed was in the city, except, perhaps, a few 
 Devons. There are often eight thousand to nine 
 thousand head brought in for sale at the Easter and 
 Michaelmas fairs. 
 
 The history of the modern Hereford breed is 
 somewhat singular. Old Fuller, who wrote two 
 
HEREFORD CATTLE 97 
 
 hundred years ago, says of Herefordshire, ' that it 
 doth share as deep as any other county in the 
 alphabet of our Enghsh commodities, though ex- 
 ceeding in W, for wood, wheat, woo], and water,' 
 and that its wheat was worthy to jostle in pureness 
 with that of Heston, in Middlesex, which furnished 
 manchets for the kings of England, and its Wye 
 salmon was in season all the year round, but he is 
 silent as to cattle. While Drayton sings of fair 
 Suffolk's ' maids and milk,' of the hogs of Hamp- 
 shire, the calves of Essex, and how 
 
 Rich Buckingham doth bear 
 The name of bread and beef, 
 
 but he says nothing about Hereford cattle. I have 
 myself but little doubt that the Herefords were 
 descended from Devonshire strains, which were all 
 of a deep brownish red colour, with snow-white 
 markings. The story of the cause of the white 
 faces is curious. It came from an accident, or a 
 sport of the breeding of a white-faced bull, in the 
 herd of a noted breeder of the last century, Mr. 
 Tully, of Huntington, near Hereford. The story 
 runs that Mr. Tully's herdsman came to his master 
 one Sunday, as he was returning from church, and 
 told him that his favourite cow, which was daily 
 expecting to calve, that morning had produced a 
 bull calf ivith a white face, such an event never 
 having happened in his herd before. His master 
 at once ordered him to slaughter the calf, as he 
 dared not let it be known that such a stain of 
 
 H 
 
98 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 impure blood should be found in his well-reputed 
 pure herd. The man begged him to go and see it 
 before deciding, as it was the finest calf he had ever 
 seen. Mr. Tully, after seeing the animal, agreed 
 with his man, that it was a wonder, and out of 
 curiosity he would have it reared. This was done, 
 and he grew up to be a remarkably fine animal. 
 The bull was mated with his best cows, and the 
 progeny became celebrated for their white faces. 
 Many old chroniclers say that the county was dis- 
 tinguished for its breed of white cattle on the banks 
 of the Wye as far back as the tenth century, but the 
 cattle had red or roan ears ; and it is recorded that 
 Earl Scudamore, in or about the year 1660, had some 
 red cows with white faces from Flanders, and this 
 may be the reason why this noted 'Tully bull,' after 
 a lapse of more than a hundred years, cropped up 
 as a sport, from the deep red cattle of the country. 
 Sometimes the face is mottled with red, whilst many 
 of the best Hereford cattle I have grazed and 
 fatted have been of a light brindled colour, and I 
 have seen Herefords all pure white, but the latter 
 are extremely rare. There is no doubt in my 
 mind that the perpetuation of the white face is 
 through the influence of the white-faced bull, and 
 is a remarkable corroboration of my views ex- 
 pressed some years since in a paper I read at the 
 Central Farmers' Club on ' Breeding ; Facts and 
 Principles,' when I enounced the dictum ' that the 
 external characteristics are derived from the male 
 
MR. WESTCAR, OF CRESLOW 99 
 
 parent, and the internal organisation follows the 
 female.' 
 
 The Hereford breed of cattle had made a sreat 
 reputation in the beginning of the present century, 
 when Mr. Westcar, of Creslow, near Aylesbury, 
 mainly established the Smithfield Club Cattle Show, 
 where for twenty years in succession he carried off 
 the first prize with his Herefords against all sorts 
 of cattle competing. Mr. Westcar died before my 
 day, but I knew his nephew, Mr. Richard Rowland, 
 who succeeded him in those splendid pastures, and 
 who related to me — whilst standing in the far-famed 
 great ground, on the spot marked by a clump of 
 trees, planted specially as a memorial, where the 
 lifeless body of Mr. Westcar was found, he having 
 fallen from his horse, and was supposed to have 
 died from a fit — how the Duke of Bedford in the 
 beginning of this century had so often expressed his 
 admiration of the splendid cattle exhibited by Mr. 
 Westcar, went down to the great Easter fair at Here- 
 ford, leaving all the arrangements for the journey to 
 the great grazier, travelling in his carriage with four 
 post-horses — which is a representative story of the 
 times as to a progress through the country — taking 
 two days for the journey, and stopping one night 
 on the road at the well-known country inn, the 
 ' Staple Hall,' at Witney, accompanied by Lord 
 Berners in another carriage and four, Mr. Westcar 
 going on ahead in the old yellow post-chaise of the 
 period, ordering relays of horses, and preparing 
 accommodation for the party. The noble travellers 
 
 H 2 
 
TOO RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 took their ladies and friends with them, so that with 
 the usual retinue of servants they formed a goodly 
 company. The Duke told Mr. Westcar, on their 
 arrival at Hereford on the fair day, to order dinner 
 for a hundred guests at the principal hotel — I think 
 it was the ' Green Dragon ' — and he was to invite 
 all the principal breeders and dealers to meet him. 
 He described the annoyance of some of the dealers 
 at these noblemen being brought down to see the 
 grand store bullocks, for it had the effect of raising 
 their price at least i/, per head. After dinner the 
 Duke and Lord Berners announced their desire to 
 purchase from ten to twenty cows and heifers of the 
 best that could be found ; also a couple of high class 
 bulls, to be sent into Bedfordshire, to Woburn, for 
 his Grace, and to establish the breed there ; whilst 
 Lord Berners imported his into the Midlands to 
 follow the same, instead of the Longhorns for which 
 he had been long famous. Thus the Herefords 
 became fixed as a great breed in the Midlands. 
 This visit of the Duke of Bedford and Lord 
 Berners, with the continued success of Mr. Westcar 
 at the Smithfield Club Christmas Show, brought the 
 breed prominently into notice, and firmly established 
 their merits. 
 
 As an instance of the size and weight attained 
 by these animals at one of the great exhibitions at 
 the beginning of the present century, I find that 
 Mr. Westcar's first prize at the Smithfield Show in 
 the year 1801 measured in length 8 ft. 1 1 in., in 
 height 6 ft. 7 in., in girth, behind the shoulder, 
 
WEIGHT OF HEREFORD CATTLE loi 
 
 lo ft. 4 in., and he was sold for loo guineas, his 
 dead weight being 247 stones of 8 lbs. ! Enormous 
 as the dimensions of this o.x were, they were far 
 exceeded by his neighbour, Mr. Grace, of Putlowes, 
 about five miles from Creslow, and about three 
 miles from Aylesbury, which was 7 ft. high, 12 ft. 
 4 in. in girth, and weighed 280 st. when dead ! Mr. 
 Potter, a well-known salesman of the time, sold at 
 the Metropolitan Christmas market in 18 12 for Mr. 
 Westcar fifty Herefords at an average of 50 guineas 
 each, thus realising 2,500 guineas. Mr. Rowland 
 showed me, when on a visit to him, a book of Mr. 
 Westcar's, recounting that from 1799 to 181 1 he 
 sold at various times twenty oxen for 2,123/., or an 
 average of 106/. 6s. each! And a few years since, 
 about the year 1878, when I was visiting Mr. 
 Ledbroke, of Putlowes, successor to Mr. Grace, a 
 fortnight before Christmas, I saw fifty Herefords, 
 then tied up, for which he had obtained 2,500/., 
 or 50/ each ! The class of animals I am now 
 describing is no more. They were five years 
 old, worked beast, and even older, they had 
 been harnessed to the yoke, and had therefore 
 attained a great size. Working in the plough is now 
 comparatively rare ; early maturity is the present 
 aim of all the best farmers in England, and Here- 
 ford oxen are now well fit for the butcher at from 
 two to three years old. 
 
 In relation to this subject a slight account of 
 Creslow may not be deemed uninteresting. This is 
 a parish in itself, but is designated 'extra parochial,' 
 
I02 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 there being but one habitation in it, viz. the manor 
 house, which is all that remains of a very ancient 
 monastery, as also forming part of the farm buildings. 
 I have seen, in some portions, the old zigzag mould- 
 ings of early Norman architecture, but it has for 
 centuries, as a religious house, ceased to exist ; the 
 foundations are still visible, but only a small portion 
 of its former beauty is in sight. The predominant 
 feature of the estate is the famous ' Great Ground,' 
 containing over 350 acres. This is all in one en- 
 closure, and is considered the largest feeding ground 
 in the kingdom. As a proof of the remarkable 
 fertility of this pasture, I have myself seen upwards 
 of 250 head of full-sized cattle, with 500 ewes and 
 lambs, and 20 mares and foals, grazing together, 
 and all rapidly fattening for market. The estate 
 belongs to Lord de Clifford, the whole parish 
 consisting of about Soo acres, not more than 60 or 
 80 acres being arable. It is by some believed to 
 have been the birthplace of ' Fair Rosamond,' which 
 adds greatly to its interest. Nothing can exceed 
 the rich pastoral beauty of this district. From the 
 upper ground, at the foot of which is the justly 
 celebrated Fox covert in Mr. Selby Lowndes' 
 country, formerly hunted by the Duke of Grafton 
 and Lord Southampton, the eye wanders over 
 the far-famed Vale of Aylesbury, the old town, the 
 y^gilsbireg of the Saxons, standing on some rising 
 ground in the centre, whilst near at hand is Whit- 
 church, and the rich pastures of Hardwick, and 
 adjoining these places is Ouarrendon, the birthplace 
 
CRESLOW AND OUARRENDON 103 
 
 of St. Osyth, with its small chapel of the fourteenth 
 century, now in ruins, rivalling Creslow in the 
 richness of its pasture. Next to this is Fleet 
 Marston, with its little parish church standing in 
 the middle of a rich feeding enclosure called ' Chapel 
 Ground,' in which parish is Putlowes, the rival of 
 Creslow in fertility ; then following onwards there 
 are about twelve miles of matchless grass land along 
 the Eythrope valley, watered by the River Thame, 
 falling into the Isis at Dorchester, in Oxfordshire, 
 and then forming the mighty Tamesis, Thame-Isis, 
 or Thames. After this digression, I must conclude 
 my notice of Hereford cattle, remarking that the 
 cows of this tribe are not such deep milkers as that of 
 the Ayrshires or the Shorthorns, nor is the milk as 
 creamy as the Jerseys or Guernseys, yet their milk is 
 rich and good, and the cows are excellent mothers. 
 I may sum up my notice of this grand tribe of cattle 
 by saying I believe the Hereford breed, as a flesh- 
 forming animal, has no superior. The meat itself 
 is as good as the best Scotch or Devon, and it is 
 well known that the breed, when exported, succeeds 
 in any climate ; therefore England may well be 
 proud of her white-faced Herefords. In no part of 
 the world is to be found a more picturesque sight than 
 a rich deep green pasture, well tenanted with this 
 beautiful race of horned animals. Their sweet 
 calm countenances of curled silky hair, their rich 
 brown-red coats, set off by the pure white of the 
 face, back, and bosom, with the meek glance of 
 their eyes, the pink skin of their lips and nostrils, 
 
I04 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 their wide spreading horns, and the general con- 
 tentment of their habits, make them the ' admired 
 of all admirers.' 
 
 On searching some old documents I learn that 
 on December lo, 1799, Mr. Westcar sent an ox to 
 the Christmas Show in London by a boat on the 
 Wendover Canal. It was only two days on the 
 journey, and lost no flesh by the transit. This was 
 the first record of sending cattle by canal. This 
 Hereford ox won first prize, weighed 241 stone, and 
 was sold for 100/. ! 
 
I05 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Old inns — Politics — Inn signs and their origin — Posting and coaching 
 — The ' White Hart ' at Aylesbury — The extensive gardens, the 
 offices, and appointments of the ' White Hart ' — County importance 
 of the grand old inn — Names of the rooms — The ' Old Bell ' in 
 Holborn — Customs of the dinner-table — To Drury Lane Theatre 
 after dinner — Other old inns — Rise of the modern hotel — Bacon's 
 Hotel, Great Queen Street — Railway hotels — Present managers 
 and past proprietors contrasted. 
 
 It has often struck me that an interesting chapter 
 might be written upon ancient or well-known Inns. 
 I use this old English name in contradiction to that 
 modern Frenchified word Hotel, which was scarcely 
 known in England prior to the battle of Waterloo. 
 People living in the present day fail to thoroughly 
 comprehend the immense influence possessed in the 
 country by these well-known establishments at that 
 period. In politics, the inns, and their keepers, 
 were a powerful institution, and I can never under- 
 stand why these generally prosperous, well-to-do 
 traders should in the present day be looked down 
 on, or in any wise despised in their vocation, by 
 people who could but little know mine host or the 
 members of his family. In my youth, the power of 
 the coach proprietors and post-masters in country 
 districts were paramount in their localities. The 
 immense capital employed by them can scarcely be 
 
io6 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 credited in the present day. Many of the former 
 owned and employed from six hundred to one 
 thousand horses, to enable them to horse the coaches 
 on the various lines of road ; whilst the post-masters 
 often kept from twenty-five to thirty pairs of post- 
 horses. The innkeepers had by far the largest 
 amount of capital invested in the principal towns, 
 far greater, relatively speaking, than was employed 
 in other business. And in the county towns they 
 were generally men of superior education and 
 manners, from their constant association with the 
 leading nobility, clergy, and magistracy, both socially 
 and politically. The chief towns had mostly two 
 leading hostelries, engaged at election times by the 
 rival parties ; whilst the leaders, and their followers 
 of Whig and Tory, made the inns their special 
 rendezvous. If I give some account of the well- 
 known ancient inn of the Midlands, the ' White Hart,' 
 at Aylesbury, it may interest many readers to obtain 
 some idea as to what it was like in the first quarter 
 of the nineteenth century. It is generally believed 
 that this was an inn during the Wars of the Roses, 
 at least five hundred years ago, and belonged to the 
 White Rose party, whilst the Roebuck was attached 
 to the Red Rose. Where ancient inns existed in 
 towns of some pretensions, they were generally the 
 White and the Red Lion, respectively attached to the 
 two factions. The ' White Hart ' stood in the market 
 square of Aylesbury, and adjoined the County Hall, 
 with the Assize Courts. In 1S12, the front consisted 
 of three tall gables, the first floor overlapping the 
 
DESCRIPTION OF AN OLD INN 107 
 
 ground floor, and the second overhanging the first. 
 Fine carved timbers skirted the gables. In the 
 centre was a large gateway, the floor above supported 
 by great fluted posts, with heavy hanging oak gates, 
 which could be closed when required. This con- 
 fronted a spacious yard, one half of which was 
 bounded by an open covered gallery, into which the 
 bedroom doors opened. This gallery was supported 
 on strong oak pillars ; a broad covered staircase 
 rose from near the entrance into the gallery, and 
 formed the main approach to the principal sitting and 
 bedrooms. There were large rooms on either side 
 of the entrance, and adjoining was the business 
 portion of the inn. A spacious kitchen filled one 
 end of the yard, extensive cellarage occupying the 
 underground of the front. At the back of the build- 
 ings were large gardens, with a beautiful ornamental 
 ' bowling green ' of full size, but seldom seen nowa- 
 days ; on each side were gigantic elms, at least three 
 centuries old, with dense shrubberies, and flowering 
 shrubs, laburnums, lilacs, mountain ash, acacias, 
 and red chestnuts. Along the bottom of the green 
 was a row of ancient walnut trees, arbours with 
 shady nooks, and seats pervaded a shrubbery 
 charming to behold. Below this pleasaunce was an 
 orchard with fine apple and pear trees, amongst the 
 former being codlins, golden and ribston pippins, 
 Blenheim orange, russets, and early juneatings, the 
 latter had Gansell's bergamot, several of the beurres, 
 and a large tree of the real old bergamot pear. 
 But the chief pride of the place were three very 
 
io8 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 ancient mulberries, at least three centuries old. The 
 orchard contained the cow-house, piggeries, and 
 hospital for horses when lame or ill. This orchard 
 was bounded by a mill stream, and in the midst was 
 a large shallow pond, called a 'stew,' for fresh-water 
 fish, in which was kept an eel trunk, consisting of a 
 strong iron-bound box about four feet long and two 
 feet wide and deep, perforated with holes, and a lid 
 fastened with lock and key, the latter kept by the 
 man cook, who was the head of the servants. In 
 this trunk or box were kept live eels, the trunk 
 having a strong iron chain attached to it, which was 
 fastened to the base of a large tree adjoining ; this 
 enabled the trunk to be hauled up a sloping bank, 
 when the wriggling occupants could be taken out, 
 affording adelicious dish when company required fish. 
 Two or three big perch, with the same number of 
 tench, were also kept there. This was very neces- 
 sary, as there were rarely any fishmongers' shops 
 then in the town, and sea fish only came down from 
 London when plentiful, and was brought by the 
 stage coaches. The brook side was edged by large 
 silvery-leaved Abele trees of more than a century 
 old. A rookery was established in the elms, and 
 plenty of starlings had done the same in the hollow 
 holes in the trunks of the Abeles. The stables were 
 stalled. Boxes being almost unknown, timber and 
 brick built, some of them had what were called bails, 
 large pieces of timber fastened by a short chain to 
 the manger, hanging by chains to a beam in the 
 ceiling above. The lofts for hay, straw, and corn 
 
A GOOD ESTABLISHMENT 109 
 
 being over the stables, generally a considerable 
 quantity of corn and fodder was kept for some 
 weeks' consumption. There was accommodation 
 for about fifty horses, with harness rooms, and 'ostry' 
 as it was called, being the office and store room for 
 the ostler, with stove and waiting room for the post- 
 boys, and capacious chaise and coach houses. The 
 whole of this establishment covered from five to 
 six acres. It may well be imagined, therefore, that 
 a considerable amount of capital was employed by 
 the proprietor of a large respectable old-fashioned 
 country inn. The servants comprised, besides the inn- 
 keeper and his industrious wife, a housekeeper and 
 barmaid, man cook, waiter and under waiter, kitchen 
 maid, scullery maid, chamber maid, laundress, house- 
 maid, nurse, boots, ostler, tap-boy, first turn post- 
 boy, and generally an extra woman, making fourteen 
 persons besides the family to feed and lodge daily. 
 The expenses must necessarily have been very 
 heavy. Many old inns had curious legends and 
 histories attached to them, and one of remarkable 
 historic interest belonged to the 'White Hart.' I 
 have the authority of Clarendon for its authenticity, 
 which I have already described. The large dining- 
 room and apartments, with sleeping rooms over, 
 formed a very picturesque garden front, and bore the 
 date on the gable, in iron figures, of 1663. 
 
 As an instance of the importance attached to 
 this old hostelry, it will be necessary to give the 
 names of some of the rooms on the ground floor. 
 On one side of the gateway was the ' Change,' 
 
no RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 which I have heard old people say was the room 
 where the principal business transactions of the 
 town were discussed and carried out, and in my 
 day was ' the commercial room.' On the other 
 side was the ' Crown,' where the customs, excise, and 
 other duties were periodically collected. Another 
 room was the ' Mitre,' where the Bishop of the 
 Diocese had for three hundred years collected his 
 ecclesiastical fees and dues by his chancellor, as also 
 the archdeacon did the same by his apparitor. 
 There was also the ' Fountain,' a name often apper- 
 taininq- to old inns ; this sometimes gave the name 
 to the inn itself There has always been much 
 speculation and doubt as to the origin of this term, 
 but we know it often existed with inns of this 
 importance. It might have meant and represented 
 the modern bar, the place, or fount where the beer, 
 wine, and liquors were kept and served to customers. 
 It has often puzzled me to know what steps were 
 taken at that time to protect the open galleries, 
 forming the approach to the bedrooms, when heavy 
 rain and snow fell. There was a sort of dado fixed 
 about three feet high on the outside, and probably 
 heavy curtains could be let down, especially in cold 
 wintry weather. Often these inns had their own 
 brewery, as almost everyone at that time brewed 
 his own beer, even in private houses, where the 
 establishment was large enouQh. The cellaraoe 
 was ample and convenient, generally well stocked 
 with generous old port and rich brown sherry. 
 French wines were only kept in small quantities, 
 
THE OLD WHITE HART iii 
 
 as they were very expensive, and but seldom 
 asked for. 
 
 About the year 1S14, business having much 
 increased, and the old inn being devoid of modern 
 sanitary requirements, and on an examination of its 
 structure, it was proved to be very insecure. The 
 whole of the front was pulled down and rebuilt 
 in the inartistic style then prevalent, but leaving all 
 the back part, with the Rochester room, kitchens, and 
 appurtenances, intact ; the old gallery was enclosed, 
 windows being inserted. The great staircase was 
 destroyed, and a new one of carved oak was built, 
 starting from the entrance hall, which occupied the 
 site of the old gateway, a new entrance into the yard 
 being provided on the eastern side of the house. 
 The fine old pile of 1663, including the Rochester 
 dining-room, fortunately was left intact. Such was 
 the state of this noted hostelry in 18 14. 
 
 This all happened some time before I was born, 
 but years afterwards I heard people talking of the 
 old house, and everyone regretted that no record, 
 in the shape of a drawing or sketch of the picturesque 
 old front, remained. Yet there is one story about it 
 which my father had been told, and I had heard 
 related by very old people, that whilst the Assizes 
 were being held — the Courts being next door — they 
 had seen serjeants-at-law and other great luminaries 
 of the bar come down between the trials, or at the 
 temporary adjournment of the Courts, going into 
 the ' Change ' and playing single-stick across the 
 table, and drinking their social cup. And that when 
 
112 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 any public event or holiday took place, a stage was 
 erected in the yard, and the ladies with their friends 
 occupied the open gallery and witnessed the sparring 
 matches and cock fighting which took place there. 
 The new inn was built from the bath stone and 
 timbers from Lord Chesterfield's house at Eythrope, 
 which was then being pulled down, and the portico 
 was from the stables there. 
 
 I have feebly described a well-known inn of 
 some centuries' repute, and before the railways there 
 were plenty as good, but few possessing the great 
 advantage of extensive gardens and grounds, al- 
 though there was one I remember, and which still 
 exists — the ' Swan,' at Bedford, on the banks of 
 the Ouse, although the gardens and grounds have 
 been much curtailed during the past few years. 
 
 I have alluded to the 'Old Bell,' Holborn, now 
 closing and pulling down, and I was tempted to enter 
 through the gateway a few months since, and found 
 the coffee room of my boyhood occupying the same 
 spot, yet strangely altered internally. I am not 
 aware if there is any coffee room in London 
 left as it existed in my early days. This room 
 was fitted with mahogany divisions, partitioning off 
 the place into ' boxes,' as they were called, some 
 holding two persons, some four, and one held six or 
 eight, who could find room to dine ; they had stuffed 
 horsehair seats fitted to the walls and partitions, and 
 a fixed dining-table in the centre, whilst the waiter 
 was obliged to hand the viands and the wines over 
 the shoulders of the occupants ; these were always 
 ample and of the best quality. The proprietor, 
 
A DINNER OF THE PERIOD 113 
 
 Mr. Bunyer, was proud to bring in the bottle of old 
 port himself, and was often asked to sit down and 
 partake of it. A typical dinner I can well remember, 
 when my father and three of his fellow townsmen, 
 who always made a point of coming to London 
 together when business called them. These little 
 parties were for social companionship, and arrange- 
 ments were made some time beforehand, that they 
 might book their places by the stage coach, and 
 have no disappointment. Leaving home by the 
 four-horse coach at 7 a.m., arriving in town about 
 1.30 P.M., in time for luncheon of a clever mutton 
 chop, then making a hurried visit to the wholesale 
 business houses, where they were in the habit of 
 doing business, during the afternoon ; making their 
 appointments for next day ; returning to the ' Old 
 Bell ' about five o'clock, having ordered dinner to be 
 ready at six o'clock sharp. Mock turtle, cod and 
 oysters, or salmon and lobster sauce, a good rump 
 steak and pancakes to follow, with Cheshire or 
 Stilton cheese to finish. Old brown sherry, with 
 soup and fish ; fine old port with the cheese, and an- 
 other bottle afterwards. Then to the ' Play ' at 7.30, 
 Drury Lane preferred. The real old hackney coach 
 with pair of horses. These coaches, with the driver 
 and coat of four or six capes, the horses and appur- 
 tenances, would scarcely be credited in the present 
 day. These had originally been the big family 
 carriages of old-fashioned noblemen or country 
 gentlemen. The ' hanger on ' of the coach stand 
 usually accompanied the vehicle to earn sixpence 
 
 I 
 
114 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 by opening and shutting the door. By the way, 
 there is a very good old story of these worthies 
 that I fancy is worth repeating. He was called the 
 ' waterman,' whose duty it was to give the horses 
 water. The story goes that the following colloquy 
 took place : ' I say, Bill, vy do they call us vater- 
 men ? ' ' Veil, I don't know, Jem, I suppose 'tis 'cos 
 ve opens the hackney-coach doors.' I think the 
 fare from the ' Old Bell ' to Drury Lane was two 
 shillings. I well remember on one occasion seeino- 
 Macready in ' Macbeth,' and either Miss Helen 
 Faucit or Miss Huddart in the character of Lady 
 Macbeth — and finely that character was played. I 
 was much impressed with the fight and Macduff's 
 triumph. I shall never forget Macready's wonderful 
 expression of countenance when Macduff told him 
 'he was not of woman born.' His hand, clutchinof 
 his sword, fell powerless by his side, his eyes glared, 
 his face seemed to turn pallid, his mouth half opened 
 his tongue lolled from his mouth, and he looked a 
 complete idiot. But when Macduff accused him of 
 cowardice, in an instant the whole man changed, 
 the idiotcy left him, and the torrent of his voice, 
 ' Lay on, Macduff,' fairly electrified me, as also did 
 the fine performance of Lady Macbeth. I heard 
 a good story of old Mr. Robert Vernon, the generous 
 connoisseur who left his priceless collection of pic- 
 tures to the nation, the collection that is known as 
 the Vernon Gallery. He was a great patron of the 
 drama, and often received parties of distinguished 
 actors and actresses on a visit to his beautiful 
 
ANECDOTE OF EDMUND KEAN 115 
 
 country seat at Ardington, near Wantage, in Berk- 
 shire. Once, when Edmund Kean was visiting 
 there, he told his host that in his early career he 
 was acting the part of Richard the Third in a small 
 country place, and was lodging at the principal inn, 
 and had criven the landlord a ticket to witness the 
 performance. When, on his return after the play, he 
 entered the room where many of the leading in- 
 habitants who had witnessed the performance had 
 assembled and were discussing the merits of the 
 actor. The landlord was smoking his pipe, and as 
 he was the oracle of the place, his opinions were 
 anxiously awaited. So when Edmund Kean asked 
 him what he thought of his performance, the land- 
 lord, after pausing some time to collect his thoughts, 
 knocked the ashes out of his pipe, refilled and lighted 
 it, and while the company hung upon his lips, he said : 
 ' Damned good fight.' Alas! these chimney corners 
 in these cosy old country inns are no more, or at 
 least are few and far between. Perhaps in the 
 near or distant future they will revive in some form 
 with the present craze for cycling. Whilst dwelling 
 upon the London Inns of my youth, it will be of 
 litde use my mentioning them, as only a very few 
 are left. In my day there were the ' Green Dragon,' 
 Bishopsgate ; the ' Castle and Falcon,' Aldersgate 
 — still first-class and flourishing; 'Spread Eagle,' 
 Gracechurch Street ; ' King's Arms,' Snow Hill ; 
 ' Swan with Two Necks,' Lad Lane ; ' Belle Sauvagre,' 
 Ludgate Hill ; ' Bull and Mouth,' afterwards the 
 'Queen's,' St. Martin's le Grand; 'White Horse,' 
 
ii6 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 Fetter Lane ; the ' Old Bell ' and the ' Bull ' in 
 Holborn, still going ; Gloucester Coffee House, Ox- 
 ford Street ; ' Golden Cross,' Charing Cross, with 
 Hatchett's, Piccadilly, whilst the 'Angel' at Islington, 
 and ' Elephant and Castle,' in the Borough, still main- 
 tain their ancient importance by their omnibus connec- 
 tion, in lieu of the four-horse coaches of the thirties 
 and early forties. When the great iron roads and 
 ' puffing Billies ' drove Tony Waller and his con- 
 freres off the road, the omnibus made a very poor 
 compensation for the loss of the mail coaches. 
 
 There is something particularly fascinating to 
 me in watching the development of many trades 
 and industries, and with them the decay of others. 
 Nothing has been more marked or wonderful than 
 the extraordinary progress made in places for the 
 reception of travellers in London. Probably one 
 cause for this characteristic was the immobility of 
 the system of management of the old inns, which 
 seemed to care little for the accommodation of 
 pleasure-seekers visiting the metropolis. It was 
 rarely that the female population from the country 
 visited the great town — a visit from them was 
 seldom more than once in three or four years, if 
 they resided more than twenty or thirty miles 
 from London — so it was almost exclusively men 
 who travelled thither, and then upon business 
 intent. Their journeys were made by four-horse 
 coach, and, as these conveyances ran direct to the 
 inns already mentioned, the latter were chiefly 
 supported by the inhabitants of those districts from 
 
RISE OF NEW HOTELS 117 
 
 which the coaches started, and the country through 
 which they passed. The first house which, as far 
 as I remember, laid itself out for the reception and 
 special comfort of ladies and their families was 
 Bacon's Hotel in Great Queen Street. It was 
 next door to the Freemasons' Tavern, of which 
 Mr. Thomas Bacon was then the proprietor. He 
 was a very gentlemanlike man of excellent address 
 and manners, and his wife was a charming lady, 
 well fitted to attract ladies and their families to 
 their comfortable and homely establishment. This 
 hotel was then followed by the ' Golden Cross,' 
 Charing Cross, when suddenly, as if by magic, the 
 railway companies found the paramount necessity of 
 accommodating their numerous travellers, and the 
 London and North- Western built the Euston and 
 Victoria hotels. The Midland, Great Northern, 
 the Great Western, London Bridge, Victoria, 
 and others followed suit, thus demonstrating that 
 the same necessity existed for passengers by these 
 railways as it did for the coaches, and the routes 
 through which their lines passed. About the 
 same time Morley's, in Trafalgar Square, the 
 ' Langham,' in Portland Place, and others rapidly 
 followed, so that London, which had long borne 
 the reproach of deficient hotel accommodation, 
 developed a series of inns superior to every city on 
 the Continent. The ' Inns of Court,' the ' Royal,' 
 the 'First Avenue,' the 'Grand,' the 'Victoria,' 
 the ' Metropole,' the ' Alexandra,' ' Bailey's,' whilst 
 lately the 'Savoy,' the 'Cecil,' the 'Hans Place,' 
 
ii8 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 with many others, can now be found vying with 
 each other in splendid furniture, excellent cuisine, 
 the best of attendance, and not by any means 
 extravagant in their charges, considering the 
 superior accommodation they afford. There is, 
 however, one serious drawback in these modern 
 caravanserais — the guests know nothing of the 
 managers, nor do the managers know anything of 
 their guests. The latter are numbered, and, except 
 in the book at the entrance, the name is unknown. 
 No welcome attends you on arrival, no expression 
 of regret at your departure awaits you. No 
 delightful wife of the innkeeper has been seen to 
 cheer and look after the comfort of the ladies ; 
 nothing, in fact, to associate the traveller with his 
 Inn, or any pleasing recollection of the agreeable 
 evening, with town or country gossip, over the 
 cigar, in the comfortable bar parlour with ' mine 
 host ' at his inn. Whilst speaking of Inns, or to 
 give them their more modern appellation, Hotels, I 
 must not omit a reference to the still more extra- 
 ordinary development of houses for dining, luncheon, 
 and every description of refreshment. I think in 
 this that London is facile princeps. Only a very 
 few years since the 'gin shop,' as it was called, 
 was almost the only place where even a glass of ale 
 could be obtained, and now every street of the 
 slightest importance has its restajirant. Here again 
 we have another innovation of a French name 
 instead of the ' Eating House,' as it used to be 
 called ; we have ' Verrey's,' the ' Holborn,' the 
 
RESTAURANTS AND WINE VAULTS 119 
 
 'Criterion,' the ' Aerated Bread Co.,' with various 
 first-class confectioners, and latterly Messrs. Lyons. 
 All these have become established, and have 
 supplied an increasing want, especially by ladies 
 and children. But amongst all the wonderful places 
 for refreshing the inner man, amongst the humbler 
 classes, are those places called ' Lockhart's Cocoa 
 Rooms'; it is really remarkable how excellent at the 
 price are the refreshments supplied by them. Some 
 short time since I went to one of these houses, had 
 two excellent hot sausages, a large roll, with big 
 cup of good tea, and my bill was ^d. ! Another 
 remarkable feature has also been evolved as to 
 refreshment — viz. the consumption of milk. In 
 nearly every street are attractive, comfortable rooms 
 to be found, where a glass of milk can be had with 
 a biscuit or bun for 2d. or T,d., tea and coffee also if 
 desired. Yet, with all this, the great Bodegas, 
 drinking bars, wine vaults, and other kindred resorts 
 flourish even more prosperously than before. We 
 may well be proud now of our great city in the 
 shape of new eating and drinking establishments, 
 which, I believe, have been great factors in raising 
 our people from the gross practices of our fore- 
 fathers, and, let us hope, without the effect of 
 destroying that bonhomie and good fellowship which 
 has always characterised Englishmen. 
 
I20 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 News of the Battle of Waterloo — Difficulty and delay in getting news 
 at the beginning of the century — The old Winslow coach — 'The 
 Dairy Maid' — Report of the great battle brought to my father — 
 Doubts of its authenticity — Ringing the church bells — Indignation 
 of the vicar — Ultimate triumph of my father — Then and now 
 contrasted — ' Our own correspondent.' 
 
 There are many events worthy of remembrance 
 in my long life which, now in the year 1897, seem 
 almost incredible. I have heard my father describe 
 the announcement of the Battle of Waterloo with 
 its effects on him, and the recollection of it is so 
 vivid, I seem somehow to have been with him myself. 
 He said that on June 20, in that memorable year, 
 1815, he was haymaking in the meadow at the back 
 of his premises about mid-day, when he heard his 
 name shouted out, and, leaning on his hayfork, he 
 observed the driver of the pair-horse coach called 
 the ' Dairy Maid,' which ran from London, through 
 Aylesbury, to Winslow and Buckingham, which 
 came down one day and returned the next. The 
 coachman was an old friend of my family, of the 
 name of Hodgkins, and he it was who addressed 
 my father, who was then twenty-three years of age, 
 as ' Master John, I bring you great news, and no 
 one in Aylesbury shall know it before you. Bony- 
 
NEWS OF WATERLOO 121 
 
 parte and all his French army are destroyed ! The 
 Duke of Wellington, God bless him ! has fought 
 and beat him at a place called Waterloo.' My 
 father told me he was so overcome with joy, for he 
 had lived all his life in war, that he involuntarily 
 fell down on his knees in the hayfield and thanked 
 God for what he at once saw was the blessing of 
 peace. The coachman had hurried back, when he 
 found the horses had been changed, and fixing blue 
 ribbons on their heads and a big bow on his whip, 
 drove triumphantly through the town, telling every- 
 one the startling news, which had been spread that 
 morning in London, that the battle had been fought 
 on the 1 8th, and that the news had reached London 
 thirty hours afterwards, and that the whole city was 
 rejoicing. Like many other towns of the period, 
 there was a strong contingent of Bonapartists, 
 young men of 'advanced views,' like the Little 
 Englanders of the present day, who were fond of 
 asserting that although Wellington had beaten all 
 Napoleon's generals in the Peninsula, when he came 
 across the great Bonaparte he would not only find 
 his match, but would certainly be defeated. My 
 father, with his staunch Toryism, had always main- 
 tained the contrary, hurried up street to the parish 
 clerk, one John Dunce, who, I well remember, was 
 the head of the ringers, told him to call the ringers 
 together and give out as hearty a peal at the church 
 as they possibly could, to celebrate the glorious vic- 
 tory. The peal of eight bells was a very fine one, 
 and soon poured forth a volume of sound powerful 
 
122 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 enough to shake the steeple. The townsmen hur- 
 ried out, asking what it all meant, and the streets 
 were soon filled with rejoicing people. The vicarage 
 was close to the church, and the vicar, the Rev. John 
 Morley, was a pronounced Whig and a firm believer 
 in Napoleon, came out and demanded to know what 
 the ringing was about ; and on being told, at once 
 ordered them to desist, as he utterly disbelieved the 
 story. But the ringers, who had already been well 
 plied with strong ale, refused to comply, as Mr. 
 Fowler had ordered them ; and as he was very 
 popular in the town, they said they were determined 
 to continue, as they felt sure the news was true. 
 The vicar came down to my father's house and 
 heard the story from him, and very reluctantly 
 became a convert to the news, and rejoiced heartily 
 over a glass of hot rum and water and long church- 
 warden pipe, for which he had a particular fondness, 
 and with which he had often solaced himself with 
 the celebrated Dr. Parr, who was an old college 
 friend of his, and with whom my father had often 
 passed a dehghtful hour. The vicar could not help 
 rejoicing, being an Englishman first and a Whig 
 afterwards. Later in the evening the stage coaches, 
 especially the mail, corroborated the welcome news, 
 and general rejoicings took place. I have entered 
 into these details as a record of the times in which 
 the great event took place, and as a contrast to the 
 present day, when stirring events occurring in India, 
 China, Australia, South Africa, North and South 
 America, with all parts of the civilised world. Had 
 
ROTHSCHILDS AND WATERLOO 123 
 
 the great battle been fought now I could imagine 
 the headings from ' Our Own Correspondent ' in the 
 daily papers. 8 a.m. — 'The French are advancing 
 to the attack.' Twelve d clock. — ' Gallant defence 
 of La Hayue Sainte.' ' Failure of ammunition ; the 
 Hanoverians retire.' ' Repulse of repeated attacks 
 of the French at Hougoumont.' 2.30 p.m. — ' Death 
 of General Picton.' ' Polish Lancers attack the Scots 
 Greys.' 3 p.m. — ' Repulse and overthrow of the 
 Cuirassiers of the Guard.' Four o'clock. — 'The 
 Duke preparing for a general advance ' ; ' arrival of 
 the Prussians.' Five dclock. — 'Overthrow of the 
 French Army.' ' Flight of Napoleon,' &c. &c. 
 Whereas I have heard from high authority that 
 the head of the great house of Rothschild was 
 awaiting at Brussels, eight miles from Waterloo, 
 with all his plans prepared for his journey to London ; 
 that about five o'clock of the i8th, news was brought 
 of the advance of the British in the final charge ; 
 that he then started with four post-horses, with 
 relays ready at every stage, to Calais, where a packet 
 was in readiness to convey him to Dover ; on the 
 road to London relays of four post-horses hurried 
 him on, arriving about mid-day of the 19th, which 
 enabled him to manage secretly to buy up im- 
 mensely of consols and other Government securities, 
 which were at a great discount, before any informa- 
 tion reached the Government, by which an enormous 
 fortune was realised in less than forty-eight hours 
 after the battle. 
 
124 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A famous hunting mare — The purchase : her infirmity, her great beauty, 
 and her matchless performances — Her docihty and extraordinary 
 pace — Jem Mason — Harborough Brown — The Creslow brook — The 
 beauty of the Vale of Aylesbury as a hunting country — Famous 
 run after a bag fox with Lord Lonsdale's hounds — Captain Barlow 
 ■ — Lord Coventry — The great water jump over the Broughton line 
 of country with the 'Varsity men — Accident to the mare — Partial 
 recovery — Put to the stud — Sudden death — Death of her foal by 
 Hungerford at four years old, and an end of the great huntress. 
 
 It has often been remarked by sporting men that 
 it is seldom ' a man has more than one perfect 
 hunter in his lifetime,' and others have said 'that 
 all men, however badly they have been mounted in 
 the general way, have had one good animal during 
 their riding careen' I may safely say that no man 
 had a better mare than the one whose singular career 
 I am about to describe. Some two or three years 
 after leaving school, my dear and considerate father 
 said to me, 'John, all young men must have some 
 recreation, and I shall be pleased to help you in any 
 reasonable manner which my means and my very 
 large family (there were ten of us) will permit me. 
 Now, I will find a horse for you, or you shall have 
 a dog and gun, but I won't allow you to have both. 
 Which, therefore, do you prefer ? ' Without hesita- 
 tion I chose the horse, whereupon a useful young 
 
A FAMOUS HUNTER 125 
 
 animal was purchased for twenty-five sovereigns. 
 I used him in business, and was supposed to get one 
 day a fortnight with the hounds. I had plenty of 
 falls, but nothing serious, and by degrees, as one 
 horse was lamed or worn out, he was ' promoted ' to 
 the plough or harrow on the farm. 
 
 Years rolled on, and it so happened that my 
 native town became a centre of sport, and the 
 fame of the fertile Vale of Aylesbury spread far and 
 wide as a steeple-chase and hunting district. I 
 formed at that time, with the assistance of two well- 
 known sportsmen, over my Prebendal farm, what 
 was considered and is still thought to be, the best 
 natural course in England. I had then married, and 
 these two gentlemen, noticing that I had many a 
 fall with the hounds, protested that my life was then 
 too valuable to be trusted to the class of horse to 
 which I had been accustomed ; would I allow them 
 to send me a nag worthy of the country, and of such 
 superior manners that I should feel comfortable in 
 negotiating the Aylesbury ox-fences and doubles ? 
 I agreed, albeit as they rode horses for which they 
 were in the habit of giving from 250 to 300 guineas 
 each, I was rather afraid of the deal. However, 
 they knew my means were somewhat limited, and 
 that I could not afford a big price. One morning, 
 as these two gentlemen were going to meet Lord 
 Lonsdale's harriers, in a lovely hunting country, the 
 clattering of a horse's feet attracted my attention. 
 I looked round, and saw a railway porter leading 
 into the yard a horse carefully clothed up, with a 
 
126 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 hood and breast cloth on. He said it was addressed 
 to me, and had just arrived by the London and 
 North-Western train. When placed in the stable 
 and unclothed, we all three uttered an exclamation 
 of astonishment at the sight of so faultlessly beauti- 
 ful an animal. It is useless for me to attempt 
 a description which would satisfy me, but the mare 
 stood just over si.xteen hands high, colour a rich 
 dark-brown chestnut, almost a black, black legs, 
 brown muzzle, rather a big head, carried beautifully, 
 slightly lopping large ears, fine prominent eyes, 
 broad forehead with white star in centre, a rather 
 long neck, with a black silky mane, magnificent 
 shoulders well laid back, strong loins, a bang tail 
 set rather high up on the rumps, tolerably wide 
 hips, bang and strong drooping quarters, splendid 
 hocks, good forehand, deep chest and ribs, famous feet, 
 critically she had rather weak pasterns, yet springy 
 and elastic. She was in the pink of condition. Here, 
 then, was apparently everything one could desire. 
 As there was ample time to join the meet, which was 
 distant about four miles, I hastened to get into 
 my boots, leathers, and hunting costume, and started. 
 On examining the direction label, I found attached 
 a short note from ' Harborough Brown,' a well- 
 known heavy-weight cross-country rider and manager 
 of Mr. John Anderson, of Piccadilly (not my old 
 friend ' Joseph ' of ' that ilk '), saying ' he hoped I 
 would like the mare, and that the price would not 
 frighten me, as it was fifty guineas ! ' (Fifty guineas ! 
 she looked more like three hundred) ; that she was 
 
A BAG FOX 127 
 
 the perfection of a hunter, six years old, and could 
 carry thirteen or fourteen stone over anything that 
 any horse in England could do, ' b^it that she made 
 a little noise ' ; no roarer, ' but ivhistled a bit ; and if 
 I took care not to press her too hard in deep ground 
 I should never discover it.' 
 
 My two hunting patrons, with myself, jogged on 
 to the meet. It is superfluous to say I tried my new 
 mount in all her paces, and found her simply perfect ; 
 she walked like ' Jine grande dame^ and as most good 
 judges will say, ' if they walk well, they can do every- 
 thing else well.' Although I was not a bruising 
 rider, I could go fairly well to hounds, and was 
 anxious to see how the new purchase performed, 
 which I could do much better if some one else in 
 whom I had confidence rode her first. On arriving 
 at the meet, a hare was soon found, and after going 
 over a few fields, with some moderate fencing, 
 which the mare jumped faultlessly, we killed our 
 hare, and as the mare pulled a little, everyone came 
 round and were astonished at her beauty and the 
 style of her performance. I asked an old friend of 
 mine, T. W. Morris, of Bedgrove, a light weight, 
 and one of the best men I ever saw across a country, 
 to exchange mounts with me, as I wished to see her 
 perform with a really good man on her back. He 
 consented, and we trotted on with the hounds, to 
 commence that most unsportsman-like act, viz. to 
 hunt a ' bagman ' or bag fox. This was the 
 practice at that time with Lord Lonsdale, and the 
 sport with this pack produced some of the most 
 
128 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 remarkable runs on record in Aylesbury Vale. We 
 trotted on to Drayton Mead, about four miles 
 distant, and found the fox had been despatched 
 about a quarter of an hour, and the hounds were at 
 once laid on. I should mention that although the 
 hounds of this pack were called harriers, they were 
 draft hounds from many of the best packs of stag 
 and fox hounds in Enofland, beino- for their oriofinal 
 business being somewhat undersized. The foxes 
 were brought from his lordship's estate, Lowther 
 Castle, in Cumberland, and after proper care and 
 training in some barns at Tring, were taken in a box 
 to the open country and turned down to provide 
 sport in the vale, nearly three hundred miles from 
 their birthplace. Generally these ' red rovers ' 
 went away wildly at a tremendous pace. On this 
 occasion reynard took a fine line of country over the 
 best part of the vale, and the pace was terrific. 
 My friend soon took the lead, knowing the country 
 well, and, as he told me afterwards, found himself 
 quite at home on the mare ; and that although he 
 had had some clever horses, he never rode so 
 brilliant a performer as this. I saw him come to 
 the Broughton brook or mill head, so famed after- 
 wards in the great steeple-chase won by Vain 
 Hope, ridden by W. Archer, the father of the cele- 
 brated Fred, Jem Mason, of ' Lottery ' fame, coming 
 in second on the ' British Yeoman.' The mare 
 cleared it magnificently, and after passing to the 
 south of the town of Aylesbury, the fox took a 
 line over a very severe country, and when the dusk 
 
OLD JEM MORGAN 129 
 
 of evening set in, my friend found himself alone at 
 Tythrope covert, about two miles from Thame, 
 having about seven couple of hounds with him, and 
 the fox lost I — not a soul but himself being in sight. 
 The pace had been so severe, and a stinging brook at 
 Ford, four miles back, with about sixteen feet of 
 naked water, which the mare skimmed over like a 
 swallow, had stopped old Jem Morgan the huntsman, 
 whippers-in, his lordship, and many others, who 
 mostly got a ducking, or had shied it, and then 
 found a bridge. After the fox was lost Mr. Morris 
 returned, getting together such hounds as he could, 
 and when returning for home, about a mile, met 
 poor old Jem, who had the remainder of the pack 
 with him, and was wondering what had become of 
 the fox and the leading hounds. The finish was 
 about nine miles from my home at Aylesbury, and 
 about eighteen from the kennels at Tring, the 
 country run over nearly fourteen miles. The new 
 hunter and her rider returned in triumph to her 
 stable, and was none the worse for the run. A very 
 disagreeable event happened to myself which pre- 
 vented my seeing this extraordinary finish. Whilst 
 lost in admiration at the splendid performance of 
 the new purchase, I was riding in as good a place 
 as I could, and, jumping a fairly big fence, I did not 
 perceive on the landing side that there was a great 
 well-rotted muck-heap of at least fifty tons. My horse 
 landed into it, almost up to her shoulder-blades, 
 which sent me flying over her head, and I fell 
 plump on my back into the soft manure, completely 
 
 K 
 
I30 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 saturating myself with the unpleasant liquid. I was 
 obliged to relinquish the chase, and was thereby 
 deprived of any further opportunity of seeing Mr. 
 Morris's ride. This eventful run, and the brilliant 
 performance of the new investment, was naturally 
 talked about. For myself, having seen how grandly 
 the mare went, and how perfect was her style, I was 
 more than content with the deal. 
 
 In sending a cheque to ' Harborough Brown,' I 
 asked him for some particulars of her history, and 
 found she had been bred in the Melton Mowbray 
 district, and was got by Belzoni out of a perfect hunt- 
 ing mare. This horse was noted as the best sire of 
 natural jumpers throughout the Midlands. After 
 having been carefully taught her business, John 
 Anderson bought her, when rising six years old, at 
 a high figure, and sent her down to an order from 
 Mr. Wilson, the then master of the ' Atherstone,' 
 for 250 guineas. He being rather a little man, and 
 this Belzoni mare being sixteen hands high, and 
 somewhat fidgety on being mounted, he disliked 
 her, and, on finding she made a slight noise, he 
 returned her, and I thus became her owner. I 
 remember one day, after meeting the Bicester 
 hounds at Chilton village, a fox was found at 
 ' Chinkwell Wood,' near Brill Hill. The pack raced 
 him away to the New Wood at Wotton. The 
 squire (T. T. Drake), hunting his own hounds, 
 rattled away as usual, cheering on his pack, and, 
 going down the hill at a great pace, charged a big 
 ox-fence, and got safely over. I was near to him, 
 
A BIG WATER JUMP 131 
 
 and did not like the look of this ' bullfincher,' but in 
 the fence was a strong five-barred gate. The mare 
 was pulling hard, I was in a good place, thought it 
 could not be worse if I charged the gate. I got my 
 heart up to the sticking-place, and launched her at 
 it. It seemed to me as though she never went out 
 of her stride, for she cleared it like a bird, without 
 touching it. The hounds had a check at the wood, 
 and many hard men came round me, and said 
 they never saw so desperate a jump, as it was on a 
 steep descent, and they were prepared to see a very 
 bad accident ; but the way she negotiated so 
 dangerous an obstacle was beautiful to behold. If 
 there was one thing this charming animal felt more at 
 home with than at any other whilst hunting, it was a 
 brook of naked water. The well-known Jem Mason 
 wished to try her, and took her one day in cold blood 
 at the River Thame, and she cleared it without the 
 slightest difficulty — twenty-three feet of water. On 
 one occasion, when I wasshowingthegentlemenof the 
 ' Varsity ' over the Broughton course on my father's 
 farm, we came to the water jump, which had a plain 
 sheep hurdle before it. The intending riders, who 
 were walking, pronounced the brook impracticable, 
 and refused to have it in 'the line of country.' 
 Amongst the company was Lord Coventry, Mr. 
 Allgood (Captain Barlow), the champion rider of the 
 ' Varsity,' and others, who remonstrated with me, 
 and suggested that this part of the course should be 
 altered. I was riding my mare, and said, ' Well, I 
 don't think you ought to funk this water jump, if 
 
 K 2 
 
132 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 the mare I am now riding, who is only a common 
 hunter, can jump it without whip or spur in her 
 snaffle bridle.' To this they assented, as they felt 
 sure she could not accomplish the feat. I dis- 
 mounted, as I did not mean to settle the point 
 myself, and requested my neighbour, Morris, before 
 mentioned, to show the way. He thereupon 
 mounted her, took the mare round about 300 yards, 
 shook her up, set her going, and over she flew, land- 
 ing on her hind legs clear of the water, and without 
 a flaw in her stride. After this they did not venture 
 to object, with their trained steeple-chasers. I may, 
 however, mention that in the result every one of 
 the fourteen starters got into the brook, and 
 floundered about, to the amusement of the lookers- 
 on. A Mr. Goldingham got through first, on a 
 horse called ' Tough Tom,' and in the end won the 
 race. On measuring the space cleared by the mare, 
 we found it to be twenty-nine and a half feet ! 
 
 I could easily fill a small volume with an 
 account of the splendid hunting career of this beau- 
 tiful mare, but, omitting further reference to her 
 prowess, complete my story with a description of 
 the singular illness she suffered from, and her tragical 
 end. From one cause or another, something 
 unaccountable happened to her, which was perhaps 
 unprecedented in the ills to which (horse) flesh is 
 heir. A fistulous gathering settled on the top of 
 her withers, just where the neck springs from the 
 shoulders. This became serious, and I called in an ex- 
 perienced veterinary surgeon, the eldest Mr. Lepper, 
 
A CLEVER OPERATION 133 
 
 and, as the suppurating matter could not escape, 
 and the discharge continuing, an opening was made 
 beneath the skin low down in the shoulder, about 
 sixteen inches below the wound, a seton was passed 
 through, and a vent found for the discharge. After 
 a time it was discovered that the bone was diseased 
 from being so long in contact with feculent matter, 
 when with great dexterity and courage Mr. Lepper 
 actually sazued away tiuo pieces of the spinal pi'ocess, 
 each as large as my thumb. Eventually, after more 
 than six weeks of unremitting care, the bone 
 became sound, the wound healed, and the patient 
 found no detriment whatever from the operation. 
 It destroyed, however, much of the mare's beauty, 
 as it formed a hollow depression nearly an inch in 
 depth, and three inches in length, close to the point 
 of her fine shoulders. The celebrated V.S., 
 Mr. Major, saw her afterwards, and said it was an 
 unique operation, and one of the most successful 
 he had ever witnessed. I rode her for nine 
 seasons, never having had a fall, when one day, in 
 a run with the Baron's hounds near Aston Clinton, 
 the pack was going at a good pace towards Buck- 
 land, when I jumped a small fence out of a paddock, 
 and landed in a rather boggy place. The mare 
 struggled out, and, after going over another fence 
 into a big grass field, began to kick most vio- 
 lently, which she had never done before. On 
 dismounting, she seemed perfectly mad : her eyes 
 flashed, she was striking out viciously with her 
 near hind leg, whilst I had the greatest difficulty in 
 
134 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 holding her. Mr. Lepper was on ahead, and I 
 managed to let him know ; so, with the help of two 
 farm labourers, who were working in the field, 
 succeeded in getting her led home, nearly four 
 miles. She was at once slung upon a beam in the 
 stable, and, after a careful examination, it was 
 discovered that she had split the os calcis — the 
 bone forming the cap of the hock, which keeps the 
 large muscles and sinews coming down the thigh to 
 the fetlock in their place. The splintered bone 
 scraping against the tendons and sinews every time 
 she stepped caused such pain, that she kicked out 
 violently to get rid of it, which made it worse. 
 After being slung, her hind feet just touching the 
 ground, the poor sufferer became quiet, and in some 
 weeks' time we managed carefully to let down the 
 slings, and she could then stand ; she very soon 
 began to walk, but it was manifest that she would 
 never jump again. She became useful as a delight- 
 ful hack about the farm, and to take journeys of 
 three or four miles at a steady pace. The accident 
 happened at the beginning of the year, when in the 
 month of April I sent her to Mentmore for service 
 to ' Hungerford,' a rather small, very stout horse, and 
 one of the soundest on the turf in England. The 
 following year she produced a lovely filly foal, a rich 
 dark-brown chestnut. When about three weeks after 
 the birth of the foal, which was trotting round its 
 dam in the rickyard, the mare became somewhat 
 excited, suddenly was seen to stagger, fell down. 
 
A SAD ACCIDENT 135 
 
 and neve)' inoved afterwards. On a post-mortem 
 examination it was found that she had actually 
 broken her heart, as the aorta had been burst, and 
 death was instantaneous ! I had some of her silky- 
 mane preserved, and one hoof mounted in silver as 
 an inkstand. Thus tragically ended the career of 
 one of the best hunters a man ever possessed. 
 
 Misfortunes did not end here. With great care 
 and attention we brought up the foal by hand, 
 which throve and grew into a great beauty, but 
 smaller than her distinguished dam. I very care- 
 fully reared her, and, when rising four years old, 
 thought the time had arrived to make her useful as a 
 good hunter. She was broken and well handled, and 
 showed herself to be a fine mover, with all the grace 
 and good temper of her mother. One day, when 
 down at the homestead, I found this filly had broken 
 out of the field, got over the brook, and jumped a 
 fence into a neighbour's enclosure. I sent round 
 one of my men to bring her home, when he dis- 
 covered that some mischievous boys had driven her 
 into a rickyard, and had hunted her round under 
 pretence of driving her home, when she sprang at a 
 gate, struck the top rail with her knees ; the rail 
 broke, one of the splintered ends entered her chest, 
 pierced her heart, and she fell dead in the yard ! 
 I never believed in breeding what are called ' nag 
 horses' ; there is so much risk that it is scarcely 
 worth the anxiety ; but a good cart horse, even if 
 he accidentally became blemished, can earn his living 
 
136 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 on a farm — at plough or harrow — after he is two years 
 old. Since the Shire horse and Hackney have now 
 their special societies and exhibitions, the science of 
 breeding and rearing is greatly advanced, and horse 
 breeding has become a profitable business. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Curious instance of life insurance — X., a specially fortunate speculator 
 in freehold property — His remarkable purchase of life interest of a 
 younger son of a peer — Death of the earl, of the heir, with other 
 deaths — The younger son heir to the earldom and 50,000/. a year- 
 Enormous windfall to X. — His noble generosity to the impecunious 
 peer — His attempt to insure his life — Unwarrantable refusal to 
 appear before the company's doctor — Sudden withdrawal of proposal 
 by X. — The end of X.'s career. 
 
 There are probably many very curious experiences 
 of the practice, advantages and otherwise, of Hfe 
 insurance. Having been for more than fifty years 
 the local agent of one of the leading offices in 
 London for both iire and life assurance, there have 
 been several remarkable instances which have come 
 to my knowledge of the practice of this valuable 
 system of thrift and perhaps /orccd economy. The 
 following statement is so unique and so incredible 
 that I might have some reluctance in committing it 
 to writing, if the principals who appear in it had not 
 gone to their long home. I, however, refrain from 
 giving names, in consideration of those persons to 
 whom the story relates. Well, then, the father of 
 X. was a solicitor with a good country practice, who 
 was highly respected throughout the county wherein 
 he resided. He had several sons, and the subject 
 of this singular story was the second, who was 
 brought up to his father's profession. He was 
 
138 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 shrewd, intelligent, sharp, and eccentric. Entering 
 the legal profession on his own account, he obtained 
 two or three remunerative appointments, and other- 
 wise his practice throve, and he began to accumulate 
 property. He was remarkable for 'nosing out' and 
 dealing with properties which had depreciated in 
 value. He had an especial /^«c//rt:«/' for substantial 
 country mansions, to which some land was attached, 
 and he invariably succeeded in disposing of such a 
 property shortly after his purchase at a considerable 
 profit. In addition to keeping a look-out for such 
 investments, he had a keen eye for the judicious 
 purchase of life annuities, as also life interests. I 
 doubt whether in the annals of life assurance one 
 could meet with a chapter more extraordinary than 
 that respecting a life interest which I am about to 
 relate. X. heard that a son of one of the most 
 distinguished members of the House of Peers was 
 in great pecuniary trouble, and was desirous of 
 selling his life interest in the family estates, the 
 property being strictly entailed. The applicant's 
 father, an aged man, was living, as also was the heir 
 to the peerage and to the property, but unmarried. 
 The latter, however, was of middle age, and well 
 and hearty. The second son was also a strong 
 robust man and married, but without children. As 
 to the central figure of this romance (for it is one), 
 he was in robust health and likely to reach a good 
 old age. It was this third son whose life interest 
 X. bought, giving 13,000/. in cash for it, with no 
 proviso whatever, e.xcept that the whole property 
 
A GREAT WINDFALL 139 
 
 should become his, with such encumbrances as 
 existed at the time of purchase, on the vendor's 
 entering into possession of the estate. In less than 
 a year afterwards the aged peer died, and the eldest 
 son succeeded to the property. The second son 
 died from the result of an accident, leaving no chil- 
 dren ; shordy after the eldest son passed away, 
 leaving the third, whose interests X. had purchased, 
 the unexpected heir to a title with scarcely a shilling 
 to support it. He was married, with a son to 
 succeed him. This was a terrible position for him 
 to be placed in. X. found himself in possession of 
 an income oi fifty-six thousand pounds per annum. 
 He was of a most generous and impulsive nature, 
 and when the trustees of the estate sought an 
 interview — which was readily granted — and laid 
 the sad case before him, stating that here was a 
 peer of ancient lineage, representing an earldom, 
 totally without any income to sustain his position, 
 he replied that he saw the sad and deplorable 
 position in which the earl was placed, and offered 
 that if they would repay him the original advance, 
 with the legal expenses, and interest at 5 per cent, 
 from the time of purchase, a sum amounting to 
 nearly 18,000/., he would give up to them half the 
 income. He therefore sacrificed 28,000/. per annum, 
 so as to enable the peer to live and maintain his 
 position. The only condition he made was that the 
 earl should promote in every possible way the 
 insurance of his life, so as to enable X. to retain his 
 income in the event of insurer's death. 
 
I40 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 It was at this time that I appeared on the scene. 
 The old friend of my boyhood sent for me to meet 
 him at the Law Institute in Chancery Lane, and 
 after we had luncheon together he told me the whole 
 story, and consulted with me as to the best means 
 of carrying out the life-insurance project. I sug- 
 gested that I should communicate with the actuary 
 of the office, of which I had been for many years 
 one of the country agents, and report to him the 
 result. After I had obtained the necessary informa- 
 tion, I proposed that we should meet at the office 
 and endeavour to arrange the business, which was 
 probably a matter of unprecedented magnitude — at 
 any rate for a single office to undertake. After the 
 appointed conference it was arranged with the 
 actuary that the usual medical examination of the 
 earl should be made, and in the event of a favour- 
 able report, a sum of 170,000/. should be insured 
 on his life. The office, as is the practice with all 
 the leading establishments of the kind, divided this 
 large sum by agreement amongst several others of 
 like repute and standing, as but few offices ever 
 risk more than 20,000/. on any one life. 
 
 Then trouble arose. An application to the earl to 
 wait upon the physician for examination was refused. 
 This refusal to keep a mutually agreed upon appoint- 
 ment was so utterly unexpected and so unfair, after 
 the sacrifices that had been made in the noble 
 earl's interests by X., the latter was naturally most 
 indignant. He felt he had been left in the lurch. 
 The earl then suddenly left England to travel on the 
 
HEAVY INSURANCE PREMIUM 141 
 
 Continent, to, as it appeared, evade the responsibility 
 he had undertaken. His conduct was inexplicable, 
 and I believe that up to the last no explanation of 
 it was given. Nothing daunted, however, the 
 insurance company despatched an eminent physician 
 with instructions to follow his lordship, and to 
 endeavour by constant association with him to make 
 such a report upon his habits and general good 
 health as should warrant them in making the pro- 
 posed insurance. As it was a matter of pecuniary 
 importance to me, as the agent to the office, who 
 would receive my commission on the payment of 
 the annual premiums, I assisted by every means in 
 my power in carrying out these inquiries. Our 
 doctor followed him up incognito, and succeeded, 
 after some weeks' research, in finding him (also 
 incognito) in Switzerland, where he had settled. 
 There the M.D. associated with him at his hotel 
 and various places, and in due time made a report, 
 which was entirely favourable, as to the fugitive's 
 health and general habits. Thereupon the neces- 
 sary papers were prepared. X., of course, was much 
 gratified at the result. Now, the annual premiums 
 would have amounted to over 5,000/., yet there would 
 be clear income left, after this paid, from a property 
 realising nearly 20,000/. per annum. 
 
 Now for another surprise. When the time 
 came for the completion of the contract, X. himself 
 was missing. Week after week passed, and at last 
 the actuary of the office discovered that he had 
 resold the life interest to the family for a very 
 
142 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 considerable sum, but less than half the amount it would 
 have realised had the insurance project been carried 
 out. The chagrin, disappointment, and just indig- 
 nation which the authorities of the various offices 
 felt, that they had thus been made to appear so 
 foolish, may be conceived. Although X. and myself 
 often met afterwards, he studiously avoided the 
 subject. I, however, discovered that, not satisfied 
 with the splendid coup he had made, that he had 
 made another gigantic purchase, and projected a 
 scheme which would absorb all the money he could 
 raise. This was to buy a fine estate, with splendid 
 mansion, with a noble deer park, farmery, extensive 
 stabling, lovely gardens, and every appanage to a 
 great county residence. This property was near 
 to Slough station, in Bucks, on the Great Western 
 Railway. X. had formed a club for high-class 
 people, ladies being included, with a racecourse, 
 polo, skating on the lake, and every possible allure- 
 ment for fashionable life. He appointed a well- 
 known sporting lord to preside over the proposed 
 Isthmian games, with a charming old Elizabethan 
 residence in the park, near the celebrated church- 
 yard of Stoke Poges, made famous by Gray's im- 
 mortal ode. A race meeting was arranged, the 
 day fixed, and all fashionable London was agog to 
 visit it. One important duty had, however, been 
 overlooked, that of ' police,' with the exception of 
 two or three ordinary county police, who were at- 
 tending at the mansion. Not a soul was in the 
 park for the protection of visitors. A party of 
 
A CLEVER CLEARANCE 143 
 
 ' roughs ' had been organised for plunder, who, 
 with impudent ferocity, stopped all visitors, and 
 deliberately held up their arms, robbed them of 
 their watches, jewelry, and every farthing they pos- 
 sessed, and then decamped. The mob also broke 
 into the refreshment tents, devoured and drank 
 everything they contained, and, in short, plundered 
 the place, leaving it quite desolate. Owing to this 
 disastrous beginning the club obtained a bad name, 
 no one frequented the park, and the scheme broke 
 down. 
 
 An amusing incident subsequently occurred. 
 A firm of well-known upholsterers had furnished 
 the club, sending down splendid suites of furniture 
 for both reception and bed rooms, with kitchen 
 requisites, and everything necessary for a grand 
 establishment. I have heard on excellent authority 
 that the amount agreed to be paid was 17,000/. 
 After the fiasco of the race meeting, and the evi- 
 dent failure of the whole scheme, the upholsterers 
 in secrecy organised a midnight campaign, and 
 as soon as daylight vanished upwards of twenty 
 of the largest furniture vans departed by various 
 routes from London to Slough, and before mid- 
 night they were concentrated at the entrance of 
 the Park, proceeding from thence to the mansion. 
 Before daylight every van was loaded, and the 
 procession on its way to its destination, bringing 
 every vestige of furniture and equipments which 
 the house contained. With such secrecy had the 
 expedition been managed, that the noble lord in 
 
144 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 charge of the establishment, when he arrived at his 
 office in the mansion in the early morning, found the 
 place a barren desert, no desk on which to write, 
 nor a chair to sit upon! It" has never been satis- 
 factorily cleared up to this day what were the causes 
 that led to this sudden denudation of the mansion, 
 but it was said that it was done with the connivance, 
 if not at the suggestion, of X. Thus ended the 
 great Sporting Club and Racecourse. Mr. X. died 
 about three years since, leaving behind him a 
 fairly handsome fortune. De niortuis nil nisi 
 bonum. He was a generous, charitable man, as the 
 Orphan Asylum at Slough can well testify, as upon 
 several occasions he contributed some thousands of 
 pounds to its funds. 
 
145 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 The Date Coffee Company — Discovery of the vakieof the date as an in- 
 fusion equal to the best coffee — Successful flotation — Establishment 
 of the patent — Manufacture of date coffee at Kurrachee in India — 
 The Imaum of Muscat — Rapid increase in the consumption — Hand- 
 some profits — The French patent and its sale — Flotation of German 
 company — Sudden collapse of the sale of the article through the 
 action of Mr. Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer — The Date 
 Coffee Company in the Law Courts — Final break-up of a company 
 whose 5/. shares had for some time been quoted at 37/. 
 
 About twenty years ago I was asked by an old 
 friend of mine, Mr. John Tucker, a solicitor in 
 St. Swithin's Lane, to join the board of a company 
 for the manufacture of Date coffee. After having 
 had the matter explained, and on being introduced 
 to the discoverer and patentee of the process, a Mr. 
 Henley, an engineer, and long a resident in India, 
 who gave me a history of his discovery, I was 
 induced to take my twenty 5/. shares as a qualifi- 
 cation, and was duly elected a member of the 
 board. I cannot remember all the names, but Mr. 
 Henry Haymanwas the chairman, and Earl Paulett 
 was a director. I may say that the directors were 
 not to be paid by ordinary fees, but by a percentage 
 on the profits and success of the company. In 
 other words, after the shareholders had been paid 
 50 per cent, on their shares, they were to receive 
 
 L 
 
146 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 half the profits beyond that amount. There was a 
 touch of the romance of discovery in the first 
 chapter of the history of this remarkable company. 
 During Mr. Henley's residence in the Mauritius, 
 where he held a public appointment, he gave a 
 dinner party, and after they had joined the ladies 
 he accidentally returned to the dining-room, and 
 was arrested by a strong and pleasant odour of coffee. 
 In reply to his inquiries, his servants told him that 
 no coffee had been made or served. Mr. Henley 
 said he could not be mistaken, and there was the 
 odour. The servants again declared that none had 
 been used. It was then discovered on investigation 
 that some dates, which had been provided for dessert, 
 had been thrown behind the fire, and their burning 
 had caused the aroma of the fragrant berry. He 
 thereupon took some dates, put them into a shovel, 
 and roasted them over the fire, the result affording 
 a still stronger proof of the similarity of the odour to 
 that of the best coffee. Proceeding with his experi- 
 ment, he crushed the fruit down when dried, 
 together with some of the hard stones, and when 
 the compound was roasted, poured boiling water on 
 it, and made an excellent and delicious decoction, 
 which, it seemed to him, might easily pass for 
 excellent coffee. For nearly two years he employed 
 himself in devising ovens and other apparatus for 
 converting dates into coffee, which, with a mixture 
 in certain proportions of the finest Neilgherry 
 berries, produced a beverage superior to anything 
 of the kind he had ever drunk. He came to 
 
DATE COFFEE 147 
 
 England, patented his machinery and the process, 
 and erected a small factory in a place at the back of 
 Regent Street, and made the article in bulk. After 
 being submitted to the analysis of the highest 
 authorities, who passed it as superior coffee, it was 
 placed in one-pound tins, and sold in a small way, 
 more as a sample than otherwise, to the public at 
 i^. 2d. per lb. The Custom House, however, soon 
 put a stop to this practice, on the ground that it 
 was illegal to manufacture any dutiable article in 
 England. The company had then been formed 
 with a capital of 50,000/., which was speedily 
 subscribed ; and it was discussed by the board 
 whether we should make the article in the Channel 
 Islands, or go to India, or some place where dates 
 were grown, and could be bought cheaply. It was 
 then decided to despatch the requisite machinery, 
 and erect works either at Bagdad or Bussorah, in 
 the Persian Gulf The machinery was thereupon 
 sent out in charge of a Mr. Mare, a competent 
 engineer, who had been working it in England, and 
 had been very successful in carrying out the process. 
 When he arrived in the Persian Gulf he found 
 there had been serious riots there with the Arabs, 
 and that several English and other Europeans had 
 been killed by fanatical Mussulmans, with the 
 accompanying destruction of their warehouses and 
 residences. Mr. Mare, therefore, prudently decided 
 not to land the machinery, but to bring it back to 
 Kurrachee, on the Indus, where we had also sug- 
 gested that our works should be erected. He 
 
148 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 arrived at Kurrachee, purchased some suitable 
 buildings and land, and set to work. The estate 
 comprised about five English acres of ground near 
 the quay, and contiguous to the railway station. 
 He advised the board of what he had done, and the 
 working capital which he applied for was forthwith 
 provided. Mare found that the best raw material 
 could be procured from the dominions of the Imaum 
 of Muscat, who undertook to supply all we required 
 at a reasonable price, delivered at the works at 
 Kurrachee. The manufacture commenced, and in 
 a few months the ground dates were packed in tin 
 cases, and forwarded to London, where a depot had 
 been obtained near the arches of London Bricige. 
 There machinery had been erected for roasting and 
 grinding the Neilgherry berries, also for mixing the 
 date powder, and packing the product into canisters. 
 In this form date coffee was sold by the pound to 
 the public at is. 2d. and 15-, 6</. per lb. ; the former 
 containing f lb. dates, \ lb. Neilgherry, and the 
 best quality half of each. The next stage followed 
 in due course. Advertisements appeared, impos- 
 ing placards being placed on prominent hoardings, 
 grocer agents were appointed, and a most prodigious 
 trade set on foot. The initial demand far exceeded 
 our most sanguine expectations, and the consump- 
 tion rapidly rose to three tons per week, whilst in the 
 space of a few months it reached seven tons weekly ! 
 Everyone who drank the beverage was delighted 
 with its fragrance and delicious flavour, and there 
 were eminent medical authorities who pronounced 
 
FOREIGN DATE COFFEE COMPANIES 149 
 
 it more wholesome than even the pure coffee berry 
 itself. Many persons are compelled to give up 
 drinking ordinary coffee ; it does not agree with 
 them ; but everyone could with impunity drink 
 date coffee. The profits were large, and it was 
 then decided to take out patents for all European 
 countries, and for America and the Colonies. 
 When these patents were secured, we brought out 
 the first subsidiary company for France, with a 
 capital of 75,000/., and sold this company our 
 patent for 50,000/. The shares were eagerly 
 taken, and the first great profit to the parent 
 company commenced. The shareholders received 
 50 per cent, or half their capital back, and as the 
 directors were to receive their percentage, 2,500/. 
 was divided amongst them. I myself received 
 nearly 400/, besides the dividend on my shares. 
 Works were erected in Paris, and business com- 
 menced there. Our enterprising chairman, whose 
 zeal was apt to outrun his discretion, began to nego- 
 tiate for the sale of patents in other countries. We 
 had offers of 25,000/ from Russia, and negotiations 
 were opened involving 30,000/ for Austria, 50,000/. 
 for Germany and her dependencies, 25,000/ for 
 Italy, 20,000/. for Spain, and, wonderful to relate, 
 20,000/ for Turkey and Egypt. But the crown- 
 ing absurdity, if I may so call it, was entering into 
 an arrangement for a consignment of the patent 
 to the United States and Canada for 120,000/ ! 
 
 A meeting of shareholders was called, and held 
 in the large room of the Cannon Street Hotel. The 
 
I50 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 hall was crowded, many ladies being present. I may 
 remark that we were all astounded at the statement 
 of our chairman, and — our shares rose 500 per cent.! 
 Our original 5/. shares were sold readily at 25/. each, 
 and were still rising in the market. It was then 
 agreed to bring out the German company like the 
 French, at 75,000/. in 5/. shares — 50,000/. for us, and 
 25,000/. for establishment and working capital. 
 In forty-eight hours after our prospectus was 
 issued 67,000/. was subscribed. Now began our 
 troubles, and I venture to think we were most 
 cruelly and unjustly treated. It appeared that in 
 our prospectus for this German company there was 
 a statement to the effect that the German patent had 
 been granted, which, in fact, it had ; but our solicitor 
 was not aware at the time that the instrument, after 
 being granted, had to lie at the office in Berlin 
 for six weeks before it could be ratified, so as to 
 give anyone an opportunity of lodging an objection 
 to the specifications. As we felt perfectly confident 
 there could not be any valid objection to it, we pro- 
 ceeded to allotment, as the whole capital had been 
 applied for, and a premium of 2/. a share was at 
 once offered. A friend of my brother's, a man well 
 known on the Stock Exchange, one Ffarrington 
 Bellairs, asked me to obtain him an allotment of a 
 hundred shares, and when they were allotted he paid 
 the deposit and received the shares. It now appears 
 that certain wreckers on the Stock Exchange, who 
 are always found when necessary, had discovered 
 the fact as to objections to the German patents. A 
 
MR. GLADSTONE AND COFFEE 151 
 
 few days before the expiry of the stated six weeks, 
 some futile objections were raised, which, of course, 
 stopped our proceedings. At that time our original 
 5/. shares were quoted at 2)11. The German company 
 was paralysed, the subscribers claiming a return of 
 their deposits, and declaring that they were not liable 
 for calls. Mr. Hayman strained every nerve to stem 
 the torrent without avail. Although works had been 
 erected at Hamburg, and twenty tons of dates were 
 in the docks with which to commence operations, we 
 offered to pay back the deposits to all who demanded 
 it. About 35,000/. was withdrawn, but we had such 
 confidence in the manufacture, and in the demand 
 which would ensue, that we determined to persevere. 
 There was, however, a greater crush to follow. 
 To our astonishment and indignation, Mr. Gladstone, 
 who was Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his budget 
 speech that year announced his intention to stop the 
 sale of all substances of any description coming in 
 under the name of coffee, other than that produced 
 from the real berry. He proved to his own satisfac- 
 tion by trade statistics that whereas the consump- 
 tion of tea had advanced enormously, that of coffee 
 had stood still, therefore the revenue was suffering 
 greatly by the consumption of extraneous substances, 
 which were being mixed with the real berry and 
 paying no duty. He therefore proposed to absolutely 
 prohibit the sale of such compounds under a penalty 
 of 100/., and that no retailer should sell, either as a 
 mixture or otherwise, any substance under the 
 name of coffee, other than the [)roducc of the coffee 
 
152 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 berry. This seemed very fair and reasonable, 
 especially as a protection to the revenue. But here 
 was this just and honest reply, viz. : ' T/ia^ every 
 ounce of date coffee brought into England. paid through 
 the Custom House the ful/cst amount of duty, 
 precisely the same as Ceylon, Brazilian, or produce 
 from any other country I ' The fact was, the Mincing 
 Lane people had got hold of the right hon. gentle- 
 man, and, inasmuch as we were somewhat interfering 
 with their trade, had placed this disgraceful and 
 most unjust proposal before him. A meeting of our 
 directors was called, and as I happened to be a 
 personal friend of the late Sir Charles Du Cane, 
 then chairman of the Customs, the Board deputed 
 me to wait on him, and learn the real position of 
 matters. I went, therefore, to the Custom House, 
 and was met by the worthy baronet with his habitual 
 courtesy. In the course of our interview I was in- 
 formed that what we had stated was true, namely, that 
 three or four tons of ground dates were passed 
 weekly by us through the Customs, paying the full 
 amount of duty, the same as the produce of the coffee 
 berry. Mr. George E. Russell, who was one of the 
 subordinates of the Ministry, and represented my 
 native town of Aylesbury in Parliament, although 
 I had been his bitter but unsuccessful opponent at 
 his election, received me very cordially, entered upon 
 the subject at once, and promised to make every 
 inquiry. I then waited on several other members 
 of Parliament, who all expressed their utter astonish- 
 ment at my information, and promised to oppose 
 
COFFEE DUTY AND BELLAIRS 153 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's proposal. A few days afterwards 
 a meeting was called in the tea room of the House 
 of Commons {a most appropriate place), where I was 
 introduced to Sir Wilfrid Lawson, who informed me 
 of his determination to oppose the proposal, as he 
 thought it was a heavy discouragement to the con- 
 sumption of a valuable and pleasant beverage, and 
 a substitute for alcoholic liquor. Mr. Gladstone 
 postponed the consideration of that part of the 
 budget which received violent opposition, and it 
 was not until July that the confirmation of his 
 proposals was passed with some modifications. Still 
 in the result very heavy penalties were enacted, 
 quite sufficient to deter the greater portion of the 
 XxzA^ front selling duty-paid date coffee. In the 
 meantime the consumption fell from tons to cwts. 
 week by week, so what with this, the German fiasco, 
 and the collapse of the trade, together with the 
 lawsuit brought by Mr. Ffarrington Bellairs for a 
 return of his money and exemption from calls on his 
 shares, the destruction of this marvellously success- 
 ful company was effected. The Bellairs trial came 
 on in due course before Mr. Justice Lopes, and, 
 I need scarcely observe, was eagerly watched by the 
 people of the Stock Exchange, who were very 
 jealous of a company that had achieved success with- 
 out their assistance. Chiefly, I believe, through the 
 eloquence of Sir Charles Russell — now Lord Russell 
 of Killowen — with his masterly management of the 
 case, plaintiff obtained a verdict, although we, the 
 directors, considered it was dead arainst the welofht 
 
154 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 of evidence. The verdict, with costs, came to over 
 600/., which proved a heavy blow to us, as, in addi- 
 tion, our own costs exceeded 400/. We then moved 
 for a new trial before the Lords of Appeal, who, 
 after a very short hearing, not only quashed the 
 proceedings, but ordered the verdict to be entered 
 for the defendants ! Thus the payment of the costs 
 had to be reversed, and the company were released 
 by the payment of a nominal sum. But the mischief 
 had been done since the purchase of the other 
 patents fell through. The chairman, Mr. Hayman, 
 the patentee, Mr. Henley, and one other director had 
 died, so that our once famous ' El Dorado ' was put 
 to an end, and the public were deprived of a whole- 
 some digestive beverage, and all in consequence of 
 the unfair and unjust proposals of Mr. Gladstone. 
 The land, buildings, and works at Kurrachee were 
 sold, so that with the produce of a sale of the very 
 substantial and handsome furniture, with large 
 turkey carpets in the rooms used as board rooms 
 on the first floor of the Palmerston Buildings, in Old 
 Broad Street, enabled the directors to pay all the 
 liabilities of the company. Thus perished this once 
 prosperous undertaking. 
 
i55 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Capital punishments — Crimes of every description that were punishable 
 by death — Numbers at every assize left for execution — Hanks and 
 the two Cribbs for horse stealing — Sheep stealers — The new drop — 
 Baron Garrow — A hanging judge — John Thompson at Maidstone 
 — Instance of superstitious belief in the charm of the dead hand 
 • — Mislaid death-warrant found, and years after sentence woman 
 taken from wash-tub and hung. 
 
 It is almost impossible to understand at the present 
 time the blood-thirstiness of the law in respect to 
 capital punishment, or the sentence to death. A 
 large number of crimes, now considered com- 
 paratively frivolous, for which short terms of im- 
 prisonment are deemed sufficiently deterrent, were 
 then punished with death. I perfectly remember 
 when a boy hearing that dreadful sentence being 
 pronounced against a young man named Saunders 
 for a burglary with violence, but nothing out of the 
 common run of such offences, and he underwent the 
 extreme penalty of the law. My father's residence 
 was next to the old Bucks County Prison, in the town 
 of Aylesbury, and in front of this gaol were the 
 Courts of Justice, and I had frequent opportunities of 
 hearing trials at the assizes, and oftentimes, as was 
 then the custom, of visiting prisoners under sentence 
 of death. I recollect on one occasion seeing five 
 men who had been sentenced to death at that 
 
156 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 assizes, or general gaol delivery, two being for 
 murder, and three for horse stealing. They were 
 all hung. The two former richly deserved it ; their 
 conviction was for taking the lives of an old man and 
 his wife, who kept a turnpike gate, the house of which 
 had been broken into and the takings of the gate 
 stolen. The three horse stealers were found guilty 
 of taking a horse scarcely worth seven pounds. 
 Those poor fellows at the present day would pro- 
 bably have been punished with six or nine months' 
 imprisonment with hard labour. I have also known 
 men hung for coining and forgery. The drop, or 
 gallows, was erected on an iron gallery, about thirty 
 feet above the ground, in front of the county gaol, in 
 the open market square, where at least three or 
 four thousand people could witness the sentence 
 carried into effect ; and when any notorious criminal 
 was hung, all the windows in the square were occu- 
 pied, and a charge in many cases made for seeing 
 'the sight.' When I was a little boy, I remember 
 Baron Garrow, the judge at one assizes, condemn- 
 ing twelve men to death — two for murder, three for 
 horse stealing, those already mentioned, and seven 
 for sheep stealing. These last were reprieved, and 
 their sentences commuted to transportation for life. 
 They were sent abroad, and I don't think any of 
 them ever came back again. They were all agri- 
 cultural labourers ; and never did an assize pass 
 without the capital sentence being recorded against 
 eight or ten poor fellows for agrarian robberies and 
 other crimes. Arson was punishable with death, 
 
PUNISHMENT OF DEATH 157 
 
 and many suffered the extreme penalty of the law. 
 The sentence of ' death recorded ' was generally 
 commuted to transportation for life, or for seven, 
 fourteen, or twenty-one years. Highway robberies 
 were fertile causes of the death punishment. Towards 
 the close of the sixteenth century, I find that in 
 1596, forty persons were executed for robberies in 
 Somersetshire alone. Thirty-five were burnt in the 
 hand and thirty-seven whipped, and many other 
 counties had the same record. This year no less 
 than thirty human heads might be seen on London 
 Bridge exposed to public view ; they belonged to 
 various malefactors who had been decapitated for 
 certain crimes, mostly for those called high treason. 
 I read also that in 1652, on May 10, a woman was 
 publicly burnt alive in Smithfield for the murder of 
 her husband ; and on September 12, 1686, William 
 Hawlings, and his brother Benjamin, a few days 
 afterwards, were executed at Lyme, as being con- 
 cerned in the ' Monmouth ' conspiracy. They were 
 greatly pitied, and were the grandchildren of William 
 Kyffin, a leading preacher among the Baptists. On 
 June 4, 1 73 1, a man was executed for forgery, being 
 the first occasion of a death punishment for that 
 crime. 
 
 On March 3, 1752, Elizabeth Jefferies and a 
 man named Swan were executed. The latter was 
 dragged twenty-seven miles on a hurdle drawn by 
 six horses, whilst Jefferies rode in a cart. They 
 started from Chelmsford gaol at 5 o'clock a.m., and 
 arrived at Epping Forest, the seat of their crime. 
 
158 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 and were hung at two o'clock. On May 8, 1784, 
 James Till, a lad of about seventeen years of age, 
 was hung at Oxford for robbing his master of 
 seventy guineas. He had been twice reprieved, but 
 could not obtain a pardon. And on the 27th of 
 the same month John Thompson was executed at 
 Maidstone. He was a young man, and had committed 
 a highway robbery on a Mr. Phillips, near Seven 
 Oaks ; he had had two reprieves and had great 
 hopes of mercy until the Sunday before, when his 
 death-warrant came down. He bore his disappoint- 
 ment with great patience and resignation, and had 
 his coffin placed in the cart, and was attended by 
 the chaplain. He owned he deserved death, and 
 desired all young men to take warning by his 
 untimely fate. He was destitute of work as a 
 water-gilder, and fell into the hands of a fellow who 
 persuaded him to go on the road, where they com- 
 mitted several robberies. After a dispute, they 
 parted, and-lie, Thompson, was taken. He was of 
 poor parents, but of genteel appearance, and used 
 to say that his pride and vanity in dressing beyond 
 his means added greatly to his ruin. 
 
 On April 17, 1758, John and Walter White, who 
 were respectively twenty-three and twenty-five years 
 of age, were hung on Kensington Common for 
 breaking into the house of a farmer, Vincent, of 
 Crawley. They laid their ruin to an accomplice 
 who decoyed them from labouring work, telling 
 them how easily money was got by thieving. The 
 following incident, showing the superstitions of the 
 
POPULAR SUPERSTITION 159 
 
 times, occurred at their execution. While the un- 
 happy fellows were hanging, a child about nine 
 months old was put into the hands of the execu- 
 tioner, who, nine times, with one of the hands of 
 each of the dead bodies, stroked the child over the 
 face. The child had a wen on one of its cheeks, 
 and the notion still prevailed, that on being touched 
 by the hands of a dead criminal, who had been 
 hung, the disease would be cured. In the same 
 month a remarkable circumstance occurred. A 
 young Grenadier, aged twenty-seven, was shot at 
 Plymouth for desertion ; he had been sentenced by 
 a regimental court-martial to receive five hundred 
 lashes, and on appealing against the sentence to a 
 general court-martial, instead of confirming it, they 
 condemned him to death. On April 4, 1764, at the 
 assizes at Monmouth, a young girl, about eighteen 
 years of age, was burnt alive for murdering her 
 mistress. It seems incredible, but I find that at 
 the March assizes at the Old Bailey no fewer than 
 five were sentenced to death ; one for forgery, and 
 four for burglaries and robberies — one of them, a 
 boy of fourteen years of age, for stealing a silver 
 watch and nine guineas. The first four were hung. 
 And at the same assizes fifty-six were sentenced to 
 transportation, one to be privately whipped, and six 
 to be branded. 
 
 On March 30, some desperate fellows broke i7iio 
 Aylesbury gaol to release two prisoners named 
 Berry and Turner. They broke through the roof 
 and succeeded in freeing the two men, who had 
 
i6o RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 been capitally convicted, and the whole party got 
 away. There were some extraordinary cases which 
 I cannot forbear mentioning, as at Durham there 
 were two cases oi pressing to death in 1576 and in 
 1597 ; and so late as the year 1770, at the Old 
 Bailey, a prisoner charged with murder refused to 
 plead, when he was shown the apparatus for pressing 
 to death, whereupon he pleaded ' not guilty,' was 
 tried, convicted, and hanged. The object of his 
 refusal was to prevent the forfeiture of his estate 
 for the benefit of his heir. 
 
 There was a remarkable occurrence in 
 December 1772. A man named Richard Holt 
 was murdered at Bierton, near Aylesbury, at night, 
 in his bedchamber, by Corbet, a rat-catcher from 
 Tring. He was tried at the Bucks assizes, and 
 condemned to be hung and gibbeted at Bierton. 
 Great crowds went to the execution. It came out 
 in the evidence that the murderer entered the house 
 by the chimney, and left in the same manner. 
 Unknown to him, his dog had followed him to the 
 house, and in the morning he was sitting outside, 
 and could not be driven away ; the dog was known 
 to belong to Corbet, and this led to his conviction. 
 In 1786 a man was hung at Newgate for robbing 
 another man of his hat, which had a handkerchief 
 in it. This year several were hung at Newgate — 
 G. Woodward, for stealing Lord George Cavendish's 
 horses ; W. Smith, for coining a halfpenny — benefit 
 of clergy not being allowed ; and Phoebe Harrison, 
 for coining shillings. She was hung, and after 
 
CRUEL PUNISHMENT i6i 
 
 hangin;^ half an hour, they placed faggots round her 
 body, and consumed her to ashes. On April 20, 
 1787, fifteen convicts were hung on the new drop at 
 Newgate. Amongst them was Wm. Trapshaw, 
 for breaking open in the daytime the apartment of 
 Jas. Sinney, and stealing a linen gown and an apron. 
 Probably at the present day he would have had a 
 month's imprisonment. Of six criminals left for 
 execution in November 1 799, two were only twenty 
 years of age, two were eighteen, one fourteen, and the 
 youngest only twelve. I have not been able to dis- 
 cover if these children were executed, nor have I 
 ascertained for what crimes they were convicted. I 
 mention them to show how bloodthirsty our criminal 
 law was at this period. As another instance, I find 
 that on December 17, 1799, at the Old Bailey, 
 twenty-six convicts were sentenced to death ! 
 thirty-three to be transported for seven years, seven 
 to be imprisoned in Clerkenwell, five to be publicly 
 whipped, and two to be whipped and discharged. 
 This was indeed a general gaol delivery. 
 
 At the next summer assizes at Aylesbury, Henry 
 Richardson, for robbery at Langley Marsh, and 
 Wm. Brown, for breaking into a house at High 
 Wycombe, were sentenced, and both hung at 
 Gallows Road, Aylesbury; and 'Galloping Dick,' 
 a famous highwayman, was also hung at the same 
 time. Several of these crimes were, doubtless, of 
 great atrocity, but most of them would be considered 
 minor offences at the present day. I have often 
 heard a story, which has never been contradicted, 
 
 M 
 
i62 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 that in the beginning of the present century a woman 
 had been found guilty for some trifling offence, 
 the penalty for which was death, and she was 
 sentenced to be hung at Aylesbury. By some 
 accident the warrant for her execution had not been 
 sent to the High Sheriff, and she continued in 
 prison for some two or three years, and performed 
 the ordinary work of washing in the gaol. It was 
 the custom at that time for prisoners to be allowed, 
 as a favour, to go out to the private houses in 
 the town, and do ordinary household work. Some 
 years after her condemnation, some officious clerk, 
 in looking through the records of the Home Office, 
 discovered that the warrant for her execution had 
 never been despatched. 1 1 was therefore forwarded at 
 once to the sheriff for due process. It was, after some 
 time, discovered that the miserable woman was still 
 living. The governor of the prison found she was 
 out in the town washing, when one of the turnkeys 
 waited on her at the wash-tub, and said, ' Well, 
 missus, you be to be hanged. The warrant has 
 arrived at last, and we must carry the sentence out 
 not later than to-morrow morning.' ' Werry well, 
 then,' the poor woman replied, ' I suppose I must 
 go ' ; so she washed the soapsuds off her arms and 
 hands, and departed with the official, and was hung 
 the next morning ! This statement has been 
 vouched to be true, and was told me by a man who 
 knew the circumstances. 
 
163 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Witchcraft — Its extraordinary superstitions — Biblical authorities — Joan 
 of Arc — The Puritans — Henry VIII. — Sir Matthew Hale — Ducking 
 at Castle Hedingham — Ruth Osborne drowned at Gubblecote^ 
 Verdict of murder — Conviction and execution of Colley — Susanna 
 Hannocks at Wingrove weighed against the church Bible — Visit of 
 the Fiery Drake to Aylesbury Gaol — Prognostication before the 
 assizes of death sentences. 
 
 The extraordinary superstitious belief in witchcraft 
 and sorcery is not to be wondered at in Protestant 
 England, when we remember what we read and 
 are taught in our Bibles. For example, in Exodus 
 xxii. 1 8 it is decreed, ' Thou shalt not suffer 
 a witch to live,' and Saul consulted with the witch 
 of Endor 1056 b.c. ; and in 1484 a.d. Pope Innocent 
 VIII. issued a bull against witchcraft, under which 
 it is recorded that of innocent persons a thousand 
 were burnt, and many killed by the tests which 
 were applied. The burning at the stake of Joan 
 of Arc is a horrible instance of this superstitious 
 belief. In 1520, a great number were burnt in 
 France, when one sorcerer admitted having 1,200 
 associates. Between the years 1580 and 1595 
 900 were burnt in Lorraine ; a hundred and fifty- 
 seven were burnt in Wurtzburg, both old and 
 young, learned and ignorant, between 1620 and 
 1627 ; and we are told that one G randier, a priest 
 
 M 2 
 
i64 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 of London, was burnt on a charge of having 
 bewitched a whole convent of nuns in 1634. Even 
 in America the beHef existed, and at Salem, in New 
 England, nineteen persons were hung by the 
 Puritans, eight more condemned, and fifty confessed 
 themselves to be witches, and were pardoned. As 
 late as the year 1775, at Kalisk, in Poland, nine 
 old women were burnt for having bewitched, and 
 thus rendered the land unfruitful in that Palatinate. 
 It is, therefore, not surprising that this superstition 
 should have existed in England. As a matter of 
 fact, we find that Henry VIII. enacted that witch- 
 craft and sorcery should be felony without benefit of 
 clergy. Barrington estimated the judicial murder 
 for witchcraft in 200 years as having reached 
 30,000 ! Sir Matthew Hale burnt two persons for 
 this crime in 1664. Seventeen persons were burnt 
 at St. Osyth, in Essex, about 1676, two witches were 
 burnt at Northampton in 1705, and five others two 
 years afterwards; whilst at Huntingdon, in 17 16, 
 Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, only nine years old, 
 were hanged. In Scotland it is asserted that 
 thousands were burnt in 100 years. The laws had 
 lain dormant for many years when, it is said, that 
 some ignorant person attempted to revive them by 
 finding a bill against a poor old woman in Surrey, 
 and they were repealed in 1736 ; and even so late as 
 September 4, 1763, a poor paralysed old French- 
 man died, in consequence of having been ducked as 
 a wizard at Castle Hedingham, in Essex ; and similar 
 cases have again occurred. 
 
DUCKING A WITCH IN HERTS 165 
 
 It seems scarcely credible that almost within 
 living memory such beliefs could have existed, and 
 such terrible cruelties practised, as were perpetrated 
 upon poor defenceless old women, and that even 
 courts of justice should have employed themselves 
 to sustain this miserable superstition. Such, how- 
 ever, was the case. I find that in 1751, on April 18, 
 the town crier of Hemel Hempstead announced 
 that, ' On Monday next, a man and a woman are 
 to be ducked at Gubblecote, near Long Marston ' 
 (which place I know well), the same notice being 
 cried at Leighton and at Winslow. On April 20, 
 in accordance with the notice given by the criers in 
 various other towns, Ruth Osborne was ducked as a 
 witch at Gubblecote. Both Osborne and his wife 
 had fallen under the suspicion of the mob on account 
 of some supposed witchcraft. As in the case of Sir 
 John Long's witch, the crime of this poor old couple, 
 in the eyes of the rabble and the local Bumbles, was 
 possibly the fact that in their old age they might 
 become chargeable to the parish. The Tring 
 overseers, learning that the brutal and ignorant mob 
 intended to impose the swimming test on the old 
 man and his wife, made some attempt to protect 
 them in the workhouse, but on the mob threatening 
 them, surreptitiously they placed them in the vestry 
 of the church, believing that the sanctuary would 
 be respected. But even this precaution was un- 
 availing. The mob, raging for blood, burst open 
 the door, seized the poor victims, and assaulted them 
 in a most merciless manner. The accused were 
 
i66 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 repeatedly dragged through a pond, till the old 
 woman died in the hands of her inhuman tor- 
 mentors. A hulking rascal, who had acted as 
 ringleader during the fatal outrage, actually went 
 round amongst the spectators and collected money 
 for the ' sport ' he had shown them ! The life of the 
 old man was with much difficulty saved. Such a 
 terrible outrage could not be overlooked, and this 
 occurred so late as the middle of the last century, 
 when our lawgivers were beginning to lift up their 
 voices against this grossly superstitious and ob- 
 noxious statute. Three men were apprehended and 
 tried for this frightful outrage. Two were acquitted, 
 and the other, named Colley, was condemned. On 
 July 30, this William Colley was convicted at 
 Hertford assizes of wilful murder, and was sentenced 
 to be hung at the place where the murder took 
 place, and on August 22 he was executed. He was 
 brought from Hertford the first day to St. Albans, 
 and then to Tring, and on to the place of execution. 
 He was guarded by 108 men of the Horse Guards 
 Blue. Crowds travelled for miles round, and there 
 was a large concourse of spectators. I have heard 
 a description of this miserable spectacle from old 
 people who were present. 
 
 Some stories, well authenticated, have their 
 ludicrous side. On February 28, 1759, Susanna 
 Hannocks, an elderly woman of Wingrove, which 
 was only about three miles from Gubblecote, was 
 accused by a neighbour of bewitching her spinning- 
 wheel, so that it would not go round, and offered to 
 
WEIGHED AGAINST THE BIBLE 167 
 
 make oath of it before a magistrate, on which her 
 husband, in order to justify his wife, insisted on her 
 being tried on the church Bible, and that the accuser 
 should be present. Accordingly the woman was 
 taken to the parish church, where she was stripped 
 of all clothing except her shift and undercoat, and 
 weighed against the Bible, when, to the mortification 
 of her accuser, she outweighed the Holy Scriptures, 
 and was honourably acquitted of the charge ! 
 
 On October 28, 1762, a number of people sur- 
 rounded the house of John Pitchers, at Langdon, in 
 Kent, dragged out his wife, believing her to have 
 bewitched a boy named Ladd, thirteen years old. 
 They compelled her to go to the boy's father's 
 house, forcing her into a room which the boy already 
 occupied, scratched her arms and face in a cruel 
 manner, in order 'to draw the blood of the witch,' 
 and then threatened to swim her. They were, 
 however, prevented by some of the less barbarous 
 spectators from proceeding to this extremity, and 
 the poor woman's life was preserved. As to the 
 persons concerned in carrying on the imposture, 
 particularly a man named Beard, with Ladd's wife, 
 they were taken before a magistrate, who compelled 
 them to make compensation to the alleged ' witch.' 
 The mob then dispersed, and the country became 
 quieted. The boy, who, of course, was ' in it,' 
 pretended to void pins and needles from his body, 
 and his father and mother collected money from 
 people whose compassion was excited by the 
 melancholy story. At the winter assizes of 1769 it 
 
i68 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 appeared that witchcraft was still believed in, as at 
 Cambridge a farmer was punished for throwing a 
 witch into the water, and otherwise maltreating her. 
 In Ireland the law was put in force against Anne 
 Lawler for bewitching John Keating, but before any 
 proofs could be commenced the witch escaped. 
 These circumstances seemed to be remnants of the 
 previous century, as on March ii, 1618, two women, 
 of the name of Flower, were burnt at Lincoln for the 
 alleged crime of witchcraft, on their own confession ; 
 they were condemned by the Chief Justice of the 
 Common Pleas, Sir John Hobart. Witchcraft, 
 combined with astrology, often gave rise to tales of 
 remarkable occurrences, which were traced to the 
 former heinous crime, as I find on May 16, 1669, 
 'a fiery drake' had been seen near Thame. It 
 appeared to be as long as All Saints' steeple at 
 Oxford. It made the place light enough to read by, 
 gave a report, and vanished into sparkles. It used 
 occasionally to visit Aylesbury Gaol the night before 
 the assizes, and was called 'the Wat.' It would 
 then make its appearance like a small flame, and the 
 unfortunate person who saw it, looked forward to 
 certain death. Why Aylesbury Gaol should be so 
 distinguished does not appear. 
 
169 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Early steeple-chasing — Qualities of a good steeple-chaser — St. Albans 
 in 1833-34 — Aylesbury — IModerate stakes — The rise and temporary 
 fall of the Aylesbury meeting — Young ' Oxford ' at Aylesbury vice 
 Banbury, abandoned — A tremendous line of country — Twice across 
 eighteen feet of naked water and over a turnpike road — 'Grief — 
 Well-known cross-country gentlemen riders at Aylesbury — Their 
 hardihood and pluck — A cruel course and unjumpable fence — A 
 carefully laid-out line at Aylesbury — Abuses and their reform — A 
 great meeting — H.R.H. the Prince of Wales prevented from being 
 present — A defaulting official — The late Earl of Darnley — 
 Reminiscences of 'Varsity steeple-chasing — Assumed names of the 
 riders — The disguise stripped off by ' Bell's Life ' — Bishop Wilber- 
 force and the steeple-chases. 
 
 A GREAT deal has been written, and many more or 
 less conflicting statements have been made concern- 
 ing the actual origin of the steeple-chase. It is not 
 my intention to enter as a controversialist into this 
 very debatable question, but as one of the oldest 
 sportsmen connected with the truly athletic exercise, 
 I may be allowed to give my own practical experi- 
 ence, and to recount the part I have played and the 
 scenes I have witnessed in the pursuit of this great 
 popular cross-country sport. I believe there is no 
 better test of a man's true courage in the saddle than 
 can be supplied by a successful struggle in a good 
 steeple-chase. The chief elements of success are, 
 1st, great courage ; 2nd, a cool nerve ; 3rd, good 
 
I70 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 hands ; 4th, a firm seat ; 5th, to be a good judge of 
 pace ; and 6th, and above all, a fixed determination 
 to persevere to the end, despite of accident or other 
 casualties. Many a race have I seen won when 
 apparently all chance appeared gone ; the ultimate 
 victor had had a bad fall, but he had resolutely re- 
 mounted, persevered, had seen one opponent after 
 another come to grief like himself, but, left literally, 
 possessor of the field, he cantered in almost alone. 
 These remarks are chiefly applicable to the old 
 style of steeple-chase over a natural course, and have 
 no reference to the ' make-believe ' cross-country 
 races now seen at the recognised gate-money meet- 
 ings, over artificially made fences which characterise 
 them. Not but what excellent sport, with clever 
 horsemanship, is to be seen at such gatherings. 
 But they lack the continual variation and unexpected 
 changes of success that attended the old style, such as 
 is yet preserved at the Liverpool and the Aylesbury 
 meetings, which are almost the only two natural 
 public courses left. 
 
 Amongst the earliest of these contests I find 
 there had been a well-managed race about the year 
 1833-34 at St. Albans, when a strong field of noted 
 horses met, and the race fell to ' Moonraker ' ; and 
 in 1836 the Aylesbury steeple-chases commenced. 
 
 A great contrast to modern times for these early 
 sporting events was the amount of the stakes for 
 which they ran ; these seldom exceeded 50/., with 
 perhaps a sweepstakes of 20 sovs. P.P. — no forfeits, 
 the second horse savino- his stake. After these 
 
 o 
 
STEEPLECHASE, OLD STYLE, AYLESBURY, 1847 
 
 STEEPLECHASE, NEW STYLE, LINGFIELIi, 1897 
 
FIRST AYLESBURY STEEPLE-CHASE 171 
 
 highly successful contests a few sporting inhabitants 
 of the town and neighbourhood of Aylesbury formed 
 themselves into a committee to organise an annual 
 meetinof ; and as the district had then become well 
 known for its splendid lines of country, and as many 
 non-residents kept their horses for hunting at 
 Leighton Buzzard, Winslow, Tring, Bletchley, and 
 also in the old town of Aylesbury, a fund was raised 
 to pay expenses, and to compensate the farmers over 
 whose land the horses ran. Somehow or other it 
 leaked out that for two or three years the compensa- 
 tion money had not been paid, and that debts had 
 accrued for printing, with other expenses, and that no 
 audit had ever been made, nor had any accounts of 
 moneys subscribed been rendered. Thus the meet- 
 ing flagged, and the interest subsided, so that for a 
 period of two or three years no races took place. 
 When the racing here had absolutely died out, a 
 circumstance occurred further a-field that led in- 
 directly to its revival. There had been a dispute 
 over some races at Banbury, which were held by the 
 members of the colleges at Oxford, and consequently 
 the undergraduates decided never to go there again. 
 I was present during the discussion, and was asked 
 if I would undertake to find them a line over a fair 
 hunting country in the vale of Aylesbury. I promptly 
 agreed to comply with their request, and in the 
 following year, 1 846, arranged for a course over a 
 fine grass country close to the town, with a rattling 
 good jump of eighteen feet of naked water, which had 
 to be crossed twice. The line had one drawback, 
 
172 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 it involved crossing the turnpike road to Bicester. I 
 may add, however, that in those days such an ob- 
 stacle was Httle cared for. Indeed, as the steeple-chases 
 then were practically from point to point, it would 
 have been difficult to find four miles of country any- 
 where without public roads of some sort occurring in 
 the selected line. I chose a line at my father's farm at 
 Broughton, which was about two miles from Ayles- 
 bury on the Tring road. The course was most 
 severe, the fences being uncut, the water jump was 
 the mill stream forming the mill-head, where it had 
 been carried about three feet above the adjoining 
 land, so that the horses had to jump it iiphill. The 
 water could not be seen till they galloped close up 
 to it ; the landing also was two feet below the stream ; 
 the banks were very unsound, and although the 
 water was not more than twelve feet wide, it was a 
 very formidable and dangerous obstruction. Many 
 horses came to grief at this unsportsmanlike obstacle, 
 but this was thought to be a afreat merit in a line of 
 steeple-chase in those days, it being considered to 
 be good sport to get a horse down. Two immense 
 doubles of whitethorn, nearly eight feet high, with 
 two wide ditches, had also to be negotiated, whilst 
 bullfinchers of great height and strength were the 
 order of the day. Rarely or ever did a horse get 
 over the course without a fall or accident of some 
 kind. It is needless to say that the four miles was 
 well done, if it took no more than from sixteen to 
 twenty minutes to cover the distance. 
 
 I can remember many of the names of men who 
 
FAMOUS AMATEUR RIDERS 173 
 
 distinguished themselves over this and similar 
 courses at that time. One gentleman, with whom I 
 have only lately had many a pleasing conversation 
 on those hard-riding times, is Mr. W. Beach, M.P. 
 for one of the divisions of Hampshire, a gallant 
 good sportsman, and very useful member ot Parlia- 
 ment. He had a severe accident over this course 
 whilst riding a horse called the ' Dean,' being 
 knocked over whilst turning a flag in a large grass 
 field. He was carried into my father's house in an 
 unconscious state, in which he remained for some 
 days, but then recovered, and was removed home. 
 I remember a very severe race between the rival 
 jockeys, Messrs. j. Allgood (Captain Barlow) and 
 Burton, now of Daventry, who rode two well-known 
 chasers, Zanga and Spangle. Approaching the last 
 fence into the winning field together, at a terrific 
 pace, both rose simultaneously at the fence, which 
 was a moderately cut single. They cannoned in the 
 air, and the pace they went threw both horses down, 
 the riders being flung with great force in opposite 
 directions. They were carried away insensible, and 
 the ' Captain,' after a few minutes, recovered his 
 horse, remounted, and struggled on, just managing 
 to stagger between the flags, and was declared the 
 winner. Whilst mentioning that a dangerous fence 
 was thought to be absolutely necessary in those days 
 to make a good steeple-chase course, I recall a 
 typical instance which belongs to the period before 
 I took an active part in steeple-chasing. At that 
 time there was generally but one race, or at the most 
 
174 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 two in the day, and those who selected the line 
 arranged that the farmers' race should start from a 
 hill at Pitchcott, about six miles from the town, and 
 should finish in a small enclosure about two miles 
 from Aylesbury. In fact, it was near to the very 
 spot where Old Vivian, ridden by the veteran 
 'Martin Beecher,' finished and won, with Grimaldi, 
 of St. Albans fame, ridden by Dan Seffert, second. 
 The last fence into the winning field was actually 
 unjumpable at any time ; but after a horse had 
 bustled along for four miles, probably with more 
 than one fall, it need not be wondered that this 
 fence should be designated ' a corker,' under the 
 mistaken idea that it tested the staying powers of a 
 'chaser.' The race was for loo/., given by Baron 
 Rothschild for farmers over whose lands the hounds 
 ran — 70/. for the first horse, 20/. for the second, and 
 10/. for the third. The course was only marked out 
 by one flag occasionally placed in a hedge, which 
 was to be passed on the right hand ; the riders were 
 to find their way over the line as they best could. 
 There was no showing them the course beforehand. 
 It is almost impossible to give credence to the 
 description of a natural course in those days, 
 especially from those who are accustomed to the 
 well formed and neatly trimmed fences of Kempton, 
 Lingfield, Sandown, ct id genus omne, but this last 
 fence should be seen to enable men at the present 
 day to comprehend what a cross-country horse and 
 his rider had to negotiate — which is a very expressive 
 and proper term. After the brook, then galloping 
 
A DIFFICULT LINE OF COUNTRY 175 
 
 over a rough pasture, they had to cross a macadam- 
 ised country road (which had just enough ditch on 
 each side, without the exercise of great care on the 
 part of the rider, to throw a horse down), going 
 over about two hundred yards of rough old grass, 
 and arriving at the big double into the finishing 
 field. First, a wide ditch met your view, which 
 must be jumped with a stiff fence into a \yide landing 
 place, with rotten stumps and big elm trees growing 
 at intervals, making it more like a spinney than a 
 hedge ; then another fence, with a big yawning 
 ditch beyond, which must be jumped to find a 
 landing-place into the winning field. The finishing 
 flags were placed in this enclosure, which was a level 
 grazing meadow, and were about four hundred yards 
 from the fence. I saw the close of this so-called 
 race, which was won by a horse called ' Vanish,' a 
 useful, racing-looking, well-bred nag, belonging to 
 a farmer named Harris, living at Hampden, on the 
 Chiltern Hills. The winner was so distressed, that, 
 although he managed to jump the first hedge and 
 land on the bank, he could scarcely stand, and some 
 bystanders assisted in getting him into the second 
 ditch, where the rider dismounted, and with further 
 help dragged him out, when he remounted, making 
 a slow canter between the flags and won the race. 
 The second horse then appeared on the scene, was 
 pushed into the first ditch, and fell utterly beaten 
 on the landing ; after a few minutes he arose, and, 
 riderless, got into the second ditch, where with 
 difficulty he was pulled out, his jockey mounting. 
 
176 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 whilst three men on each side propped him up, and 
 the poor brute walked with difficulty between the 
 flags and obtained second money. No other horse 
 was in sight, although twelve had started. After 
 waiting some time, no one else appearing, the 
 judge with his friends left the field, proceeding 
 homewards in a fly. The crowd, both horse and 
 foot, were returning along the turnpike road, which 
 adjoined the last three fields, amongst whom was the 
 veteran John Brown, of Tring, who died about three 
 years since at the age of ninety-three, when some 
 one said, ' Muster Brown, there ain't been anybody 
 claiming the lo/. for the third horse.' ' If that's it,' 
 said the old stager, 'I'll have a try.' He rode back 
 with some friends about half a mile, where he had 
 left off beaten, and as his horse had somewhat 
 recovered his wind, he set him going, came up to 
 the terrible double, got safely over, calling upon 
 several people to witness that he had properly gone 
 fairly over the course, and had passed through the 
 winning flags, and claimed the lo/. for third money ! 
 In the end this was awarded to him. The foolish- 
 ness of this arrangement, and its cruelty, so impressed 
 me, that I determined, if I had ever an opportunity, 
 the whole of this system should be abolished. 
 
 The next year, having been applied to by the 
 ' 'Varsity ' gentlemen to find them a course, I pro- 
 ceeded to do so. I considered there was something 
 else to be done besides showing the stamina and capa- 
 bility of a hunter, viz. that the public should be 
 amused, and that the absurdity of a 'point to point ' 
 race, with its iiiipracticaiilc fences, should beabolishcd ; 
 
A FAIR HUNTING COURSE 177 
 
 and for the public to be amused, that they should be 
 able to see the race. That the course, if possible, 
 should be near the town, and quite accessible to 
 foot people ; that the fences and water jump should 
 be such as men are accustomed to ride over when 
 fairly riding to hounds ; if practicable, that the start 
 and finish should be at or near the same place ; 
 where a fence was dangerous to horse or rider, it 
 should be made practicable ; that the course should 
 be shown to the riders before the race, removing 
 all unfair advantage to native owners or riders, 
 to the prejudice of strangers to the locality ; that 
 the finish should be enclosed with ropes or rails, 
 and that horsemen should be excluded from ridingf 
 on or over the course, as I had repeatedly seen cads 
 absolutely riding amongst the jockeys, so as to be 
 able to say, they had jumped every fence on the 
 line. At Aylesbury there was no charge for admis- 
 sion on to the course except for carriages. It will 
 therefore be perceived, that unless considerable sub 
 scriptions could be found, the stakes and expenses 
 could not be met. In those early days a few farm 
 waggons and carts formed the stands, where a 
 charge of 2^. bd. each was made, which brought 
 in a few pounds to pay labour and petty charges, 
 but the chief cost was met by subscription. There 
 was one peculiarity which redounded greatly to the 
 credit of the farmers over whose land the race 
 took place — they made no charge whatever for the 
 privilege ; and if after the meeting a hamper of wine 
 was sent to them, they were satisfied. I have 
 
 N 
 
I7S RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 entered rather fully into this matter, as it will 
 scarcely be believed how the gradual development 
 of the modern steeple-chase took place. It may be 
 mentioned that, except special prizes offered by 
 Masters of hounds in the neighbourhood, and men 
 who hunted with them, the cups and otherwise were 
 given by the members of Parliament for the boroughs 
 and counties adjacent. The stakes were moderate, 
 say from 20/. to 25/., and the entrance money i/. 
 to 2/. From one to two races per day, they gradually 
 increased to three, or at the most four, never 
 exceeding the latter number. As, at the time, every 
 course in England was a natural one, it was im- 
 possible to fence it in ; therefore there could be but 
 little chance of gate money, and all the expenses 
 came from private subscriptions and the charge for 
 carriaofes into the winnincj field. It was a most 
 pernicious custom, prevalent at many races, for men, 
 and even ladies, to ride over the course along with 
 the jockeys and the horses running ; nothing could 
 be more prejudicial to real sport than this practice. 
 Often these amateurs would get in the way of the 
 riders, and, as was generally the case, would blunder 
 or fall at a fence, throwing a steeple-chaser down, and 
 thus destroy any chance of his winning. I studiously 
 and effectually put a stop to this practice, by strictly 
 forbidding horsemen on the course, but I permitted 
 their presence in the winning field, if accompanied by 
 a lady. This put a stop to the obnoxious system. 
 When it was proposed that the Grand National 
 Hunt Steeple-chase should come to Aylesbury, it was 
 
GRAND NATIONAL HUNT RACE 179 
 
 imperative, if they used my course, that the ' Long 
 Meadow,' as it was called, of twenty-five acres, 
 which was the winning field, should be wired and 
 fenced in, with plenty of policemen to prevent people 
 from trespassing without payment of a shilling. 
 There was some difficulty in making the arrange- 
 ment, as a public footpath crossed one end of the 
 winning field. This trouble was, however, sur- 
 mounted by appointing four men to hold a rope 
 across the track of the horses, and providing 
 policemen to keep the people movmg on. The 
 meeting was a great success, the course was in 
 perfect order, the crowd was immense, and upwards 
 of 1,200/. was taken in the two days. The Prince 
 of Wales intended to be present, but was detained 
 at Berlin, on his return from Moscow. Every 
 preparation was made for his reception. The Great 
 Western Railway platform had been lengthened at 
 the station, so as to reach the bridge over the stream 
 into my garden, through which he was to pass to 
 my house, into the main street of the town, where a 
 coach and four was to be in readiness after luncheon 
 to convey him and his friends on to the course. It 
 was a great disappointment, as I had prepared 
 luncheon for forty or fifty in my dining-room for 
 his party, and had to put up with the latter, and no 
 Prince. There were three drags waiting at the 
 front door to convey the distinguished visitors to 
 the scene of action. The sport was excellent. Lord 
 Strathmore rode and won two races gallantly, and 
 Lowlander, the best horse of his year, made his 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 appearance over hurdles, being placed third to 
 Lucellum, the winner, and afterwards winning the 
 Royal Hunt Cup at Ascot, and carrying everything 
 before him during that year. I always look on this 
 honest grand horse Lowlander as one of the great 
 racers of the century. I must leave those who interest 
 themselves in racing matters to find the winners in 
 these two days. 
 
 I cannot refrain from mentioning one matter of 
 much personal consequence to myself. I will not 
 o-ive the name of the self-constituted manager and 
 treasurer, as he is gone to his last home, but it so 
 happened that he had opened an account with the 
 London and County Bank at Aylesbury. My busi- 
 ness manager collected the gate- and other moneys 
 with the stands, &c., and went, with two police- 
 men in attendance, in a dog-cart, carrying about 
 600/., after the races, and paid it into the aforesaid 
 account. The next morning, the manager of the 
 bank called on me, saying he had been privately 
 warned that this gentleman was a somewhat 
 doubtful character, and would strongly advise me 
 to have the second day's money paid into my 
 private account, as I banked with them. I had 
 already made myself responsible for nearly the 
 whole expenses of the meeting, viz., for the police, 
 advertising, printing, labour, compensation for the 
 land, with many other expenses that only racing 
 men know, and I had better make myself safe. I 
 took his advice, and the cash was deposited as 
 suggested. This was most fortunate, as my 
 
THE 'VARSITY MEETINGS i8i 
 
 quondam friend seized on the first day's takings, and 
 became very angry at my appropriating receipts of 
 the second day. These enabled me to pay everything, 
 for which I liad made myself liable, amounting to 
 over 500/. After I had settled all these claims, I 
 paid the balance into his account, amounting to 
 about 20/. I discovered afterwards that many of 
 the stakes, and his own responsibilities, were unpaid 
 for more than two years afterwards, and I have been 
 informed that some remain unpaid to this day. 
 Moral : ' You cannot be too careful in money matters, 
 when dealing with strangers.' 
 
 The recent death of the Earl of Darnley 
 (December 1896) recalls to my mind a very in- 
 teresting event which occurred in the early history 
 of the Aylesbury Aristocratic Steeple-chases. At 
 the commencement of these races a determined 
 effort was made by the ' 'Varsity ' authorities to put 
 a stop to cross-country meetings by the under- 
 graduates, who had ran at the Moreton-in-the 
 Marsh, Banbury, and other places, and young men 
 had been sent down for disobeying the orders of the 
 Dons. It was therefore found necessary to keep 
 secret the names of owners of the horses running, 
 but more especially the names of the riders. Various 
 expedients were resorted to blind the eyes of the 
 authorities, but none were found more effective than 
 the employment of fictitious names. These, of course, 
 were known to those interested, whilst their masters 
 were kept in ignorance. Often the nom de guerre took 
 the form of a parody on the real name — for instance, 
 
M 
 
 [l\'.^^fc^ 
 
 182 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 Mr. Lance was called Mr. Dart, Mr. Hill was Mr. 
 Mountain ; whilst others, like Mr. Jas. Allgood, who 
 was by far the champion rider in Oxford, was Captain 
 Barlow. It is so long since, that I forget many 
 amusing sobriquets. These fictitious names were 
 printed on the card of the races, as also in the public 
 accounts in ' Bell's Life,' which at that day, 1847, 
 was almost the only sporting paper published, and 
 that issued weekly, yet the immense authority wielded 
 by this paper can scarcely be credited in the present 
 p 'RfMrrT ►^ day. No sporting event of any notoriety whatever, 
 
 whether pugilistic, racing, steeple-chasing, betting, 
 card-playing, aquatic, athletic, &c., was in dispute, 
 \fn^^ but it was always referred to ' Bell's Life,' whose 
 
 decision was considered final, and was acquiesced 
 in by everyone. Amongst the endless variety of 
 sporting papers — daily, weekly, or otherwise — con- 
 ducted as many of them are on the most careful and 
 really safe lines, and on eminently high-class literary 
 principles, none of them have ever claimed the 
 authoritative position of ' Bell's Life.' The tacit 
 consent of all parties to the decisions of this paper 
 had many advantages, specially by saving litigation 
 and unpleasant controversy. It may be well 
 imagined how the accounts of the Aylesbury 
 Aristocratic Races were scanned after the spring 
 meeting, when the paper appeared on the breakfast 
 table of many a squire's mansion, or at a clerical 
 dignitary's rectory, to revive the recollections of old 
 college friends at this popular reunion of past and 
 present members of both 'Varsities. Knowing 
 
A REPORTER'S ERROR 183 
 
 therefore, as I did, how absolutely necessary for the 
 future welfare of many undergraduates, that the 
 strictest secrecy should be observed, as to their 
 presence at these meetings, and even more, of their 
 participation in the actual entry of horses and the 
 riding by themselves, I had always given the strictest 
 injunction to the reporter from ' Bell's Life ' that no 
 names should be published other than those on the 
 cards. There were, of course, many men to whom 
 the publication of their real names was of no conse- 
 quence. But to others it probably meant loss of 
 position in their colleges and in many a country 
 home, both lay and clerical. Judge, therefore, of 
 my horror when, on the Sunday following one of 
 our most successful gatherings over my father's farm 
 in the Broughton country, there appeared in this 
 great sporting paper an account of the racing, with 
 much descriptive power, and the names in full of 
 everyone who had taken part in the two days' 
 meeting ! The Earl of Darnley, who that year was 
 the head of the sport, was greatly astounded at the 
 publication, and wrote me a most indignant letter, 
 blaming me for permitting so flagrant a breach of 
 his strictest injunctions, and saying it would be the 
 last time they would come to Aylesbury ; and that 
 he was authorised to say how seriously the publica- 
 tion of these names would be, and had already been, 
 to those young gentlemen in their future career. It 
 would, he added, matter nothing to him and others, 
 situated as he was, who were more or less their own 
 masters, but that many who were intended for the 
 
i84 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 Church were hopelessly prevented from attaining 
 their desired position. I wrote at once to the editor 
 of ' Bell's Life ' for an explanation, as I had been 
 very particular in enjoining the most perfect 
 secrecy to Mr. Harrison, who was invariably present 
 at these meetings, who stood high on the editorial 
 staff, and who had hitherto adhered strictly to my 
 directions. I therefore insisted on an apology and a 
 complete exoneration of myself, with a full explana- 
 tion of the circumstances. Mr. Harrison replied, 
 saying he most deeply regretted it ; that he had 
 always been most particular in suppressing the 
 names, but on the morning in question he had been 
 walking over the course, two miles distant, so as to 
 describe it, and had given directions to a deputy to 
 compare the weights on the card with the entries, 
 and when the grooms and helpers had brought the 
 saddles, bridles, &c., to the intending riders whilst 
 weighing, he had asked the names of the jockeys, 
 and had very officiously put those names into the 
 report in full, and he deeply apologised for what he 
 called his representative's unguarded conduct. I 
 sent this letter off to Lord Darnley, and received a 
 very kind reply and a complete exoneration from 
 him, and the unpleasant affair was ended. After 
 this I took care to impress on all reporters the 
 necessity of strict secrecy in the names of everyone 
 concerned in the ' Aylesbury Aristocratic Meeting,' 
 and the same injunctions to trainers, grooms, and 
 helpers in the stables. 
 
 It has often struck me that a list of some of those 
 
STEEPLE-CHASE AMATEURS 1S5 
 
 who rode or took a prominent part in these truly- 
 sportsmanlike meetings would be of more than usual 
 interest, as very many of them have arrived at the 
 highest positions in the State, the Army, or the Bar. 
 Even the Church has to be thankful for many a good 
 hard-working incumbent who has taken his part 
 'between the flags.' I have reason to believe the 
 great Bishop Wilberforce took considerable interest 
 in these ' 'Varsity ' meetings. 
 
i86 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 History of a railway — Opening of the London and Birmingham, now 
 the London and North-Western — The Buckinghamshire — George 
 Stephenson and his son Robert — The Aylesbury — Messrs. Brydone 
 and Rummens — Marquis of Chandos — Mr. Stewart, secretary to 
 London and North- Western — Unfair opposition of landowner — 
 Contracts and their effect — Directors' advances — The Great Western 
 — The Metropolitan — Purchase of the A and B line — Shameful 
 treatment of the original directors — Their just claims ignored — The 
 Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnsliire (Great Central). 
 
 It may be of some interest to railway people and 
 others to learn the singular history of a much 
 despised and greatly ridiculed little railroad. I may 
 be pardoned for recounting this, as I was the pro- 
 jector of the scheme for reviving a portion of the 
 original design of old George Stephenson, which 
 was further developed by his son Robert. This 
 line, the ' Buckinghamshire,' was one of the great 
 proposals of the latter in the year 1846, and was 
 projected to connect the Great Western at Oxford 
 with the London and North-Western at Bletchley, 
 as also to join the former line at Banbury with the 
 latter at Aylesbury, the two lines crossing at a spot 
 now called Verney Junction, in the parish of Claydon, 
 on land belonging to the late Sir Harry Verney. 
 7 he lines were commenced, and shortly afterwards 
 the railway crisis ensued, and in the end the portion 
 
ORIGIN OF A RAILWAY 187 
 
 from Verney Junction to Aylesbury was abandoned, 
 and was thought nothing of for a space of nearly 
 fifteen years. Sometime about the year i860 some 
 gentlemen called on me to confer as to the desirability 
 of making a line to Thame, and then continuing it to 
 Oxford from the terminus of the London and North- 
 Western at Aylesbury. The line was surveyed, 
 and was apparently sure of success, but ' the old, 
 old story,' want of capital, caused the project to be 
 abandoned. A year or two later, a Mr. Brydone, 
 one of the engineers of the Great Northern Rail- 
 way, with Mr. F. Rummens, a small and quite 
 unknown contractor, who had been one of those 
 concerned in the abortive railway to Thame, begged 
 of me to join them in reviving the undertaking. I 
 told them it was useless to attempt it, as a Bill had 
 been obtained the previous session by the Great 
 Western Company to make a line to that town and 
 thence to Oxford, but I said, I remember, that in 
 the year 1847, the portion of the Buckinghamshire 
 (formerly described) had been abandoned, and 
 ought to be revived. The original intention had 
 been to connect Aylesbury with Banbury, Bucking- 
 ham, and Oxford ; but the main line was now like 
 the play of ' Hamlet ' with the principal character 
 omitted. The line was, in fact, deprived of all its 
 value. If they thought it worth while, I would show 
 them the country, and prove it would be of in- 
 calculable advantage to the whole district if the 
 project could be carried out. I then ordered out a 
 carriage and pair of horses, and we started over the 
 
i88 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 line, and I pointed out to them old George Stephen- 
 son's original scheme to the north, through Bir- 
 mingham. We drove to Claydon, saw Sir Harry 
 Verney, who was Chairman of the ' Buckingham- 
 shire,' and when 1 explained to him my plans, he 
 was greatly pleased, and agreed to assist by every 
 means in his power the object in view. On our 
 return I took them to Wotton, calling on the 
 Marquis of Chandos, afterwards third Duke of 
 Buckingham, fortunately finding him at home, and 
 explained our purpose in coming. He welcomed 
 us most cordially, and expressed himself heartily in 
 support of the scheme, and said he would subscribe 
 5,000/., and become chairman of the company ! As 
 he was then Chairman of the London and North- 
 Western Railway Company, this was far in excess 
 of our expectations, and I need not say that I looked 
 on our Bill as safe, and the line as good as made. 
 We arranored for a future conference and returned 
 to Aylesbury. 
 
 At a future meeting the preliminary company 
 was formed, the Marquis becoming chairman of the 
 directors, Sir Harry Verney vice-chairman, with a 
 strong addition of some leading county gentlemen, 
 bankers, and others, with myself, the company being 
 duly registered as the ' Aylesbury and Buckingham 
 Railway Company,' afterwards generally known as 
 the ' A and B ' Company. The surveys were made, 
 the Bill deposited, and in 1861 our Act of Parlia- 
 ment was obtained. Shortly afterwards the pro- 
 spectus was issued, the subscription list opened, and 
 
MR. MOON AND THE RAILWAY 189 
 
 the estimates having been accepted for the con- 
 struction — being 100,000/. for the twelve and a half 
 miles — about 25,000/. cash was subscribed, besides a 
 good portion of the land required. The Marquis 
 considered that this was quite sufficient to start with, 
 and the contract was entered into with Mr. Rummens, 
 this to be divided into three portions, the first to 
 begin at Claydon, with a junction to the Bucks line. 
 Sir Harry Verney being the principal landowner for 
 nearly two miles, stipulated that the connection 
 should be called ' Verney Junction,' by which it is 
 still known. This was in 1861-62. Without any 
 fuss or show, except the consumption of a few 
 gallons of beer to the men, I cut the first sod of the 
 line on my own farm at Aylesbury, so as to make a 
 beginning, but the real work of the road was at 
 Claydon. The want of sufficient capital soon be- 
 came apparent, and it was found that the bulk of the 
 line must inevitably be made on 'paper' which 
 more or less threw the directors into the hands of 
 the contractor. The reign also at about this time 
 of the Marquis of Chandos as Chairman of the 
 London and North-Western Company came to an 
 end, and Mr. R. Moon reigned in his place. The 
 Sun of the Marquis had set, and the Moon had risen 
 in his stead. 
 
 Before actual work had commenced, Mr. J. G. 
 Rowe, our secretary, had received an answer from 
 Mr. Stewart, the then secretary to the London and 
 North-Western Company, to his application respect- 
 ing the support to be given to the ' A and B ' by 
 
I90 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 the directors of the London and North-Western. 
 The secretary repHed ' that he was directed to 
 inform him that as soon as the Hne was completed 
 they would be happy to work it on fair and equit- 
 able terms' The Marquis was then chairman of 
 both lines, and he, with our other directors, were of 
 course perfectly satisfied with our prospects. We 
 issued 35,000/. worth of 5 per cent, debentures, 
 which were readily taken up by the public, and we 
 thought we were in clover. Soon after the retire- 
 ment of the Marquis the crisis of 1866 came upon 
 us, and the want of money utterly paralysed our 
 exertions. In addition to this, a London solicitor, 
 the agent to an impecunious landowner, through 
 whose property our line passed for nearly three 
 miles, threw every obstacle in our way, levying 
 blackmail on us by every means in his power, per- 
 suading the tenants to put forth monstrous claims 
 for severance and residential injury, and causing us 
 quite a year's delay. This was most unwarrantable, 
 as this same lawyer had welcomed us effusively, pro- 
 mised to give us every encouragement, as the estate 
 would be improved 30 per cent, by having a station 
 upon it, and promised to let us have the land at 
 agricultural value. When we began to treat for 
 the land, as soon as the works had reached this pro- 
 perty, this man pretended that the proposed route 
 had been altered, which was utterly untrue, and 
 demanded three times the value of the land, and 
 stipulated that an iron railed fence should be carried 
 along the line instead of a fence of wood and a 
 
TROUBLE BY DELAY 191 
 
 quickset hedge. In spite of his obstruction, the 
 landowner himself living a long distance away, in 
 Bedfordshire, we gave the usual legal notices, and 
 an eminent land valuer arbitrated on the case. He 
 decided in the company's favour as far as the value 
 of the land was concerned, but the delay which this 
 litigation caused stopped the construction of the line 
 for several months, and threw the many arrange- 
 ments out of gear, until the terrible crisis of 1866 
 stopped the supplies for more than a year ; the works 
 were almost entirely suspended, some funds were 
 advanced by the bank, and the second portion of the 
 contract was completed. The most important part 
 remained, namely, the last five miles into Aylesbury. 
 The estimate for this work was 30,000/., and under 
 the suggestion and by the direction of Mr. Rummens, 
 the contractor, I persuaded the board to issue to 
 him 60,000/. worth of fully paid-up shares instead 
 of 30,000/ cash. I am particular in mentioning 
 this in view of the result. The line was then sup- 
 posed to be completed and ready for opening. 
 Colonel Yolland, the inspector, made a rigid examin- 
 ation, and reported that several things were of neces- 
 sity to be done before he could certify. The prin- 
 cipal items were additional signals and junctions with 
 locking apparatus ; these made an extra of 5 ,000/ The 
 board were greatly troubled at this, as there was no 
 money. The Duke of Buckingham was in India as 
 President of Madras. The Bucks and Oxon Bank 
 agreed to advance the amount on the joint note of the 
 directors then present. I happened to be one, and in 
 
192 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 my anxiety to open the line, I at once consented to 
 sign the bill. The money was found, and the secre- 
 tary drew out the amount as required for its comple- 
 tion. The line was opened, which then raised the 
 question as to its working ; and as the secretary, Mr. 
 Stewart, of the London and North-Western Rail- 
 way Company, had written, as before mentioned, 
 officially to say that the company would work the 
 line for us on its completion, on fair and reasonable 
 terms, our secretary was directed to apply to them 
 at once to carry out their proposal. It will scarcely 
 be credited that a company of such high repute and 
 position as the London and North-Western Railway 
 should have acted so dishonourably, but they repu- 
 diated the whole transaction. Mr. Stewart was 
 dead, the Duke of Buckingham had ceased to hold 
 the chairmanship, and this refusal was then ratified 
 by the then London and North-Western Board. 
 In all my experience I do not know of a more un- 
 warrantable act. I am at a loss to conceive why 
 this conduct was pursued ; probably it was to force 
 the ' A and B ' Company to sell their line to the 
 repudiating company. The Great Western Com- 
 pany were then applied to, and an arrangement was 
 made with them to find locomotive power, a first, 
 second, and third class carriage, with guard's van, 
 driver, stoker, and guard ; our company to supply 
 oil for lighting, with station masters and porters. I 
 forget the exact amount, but I think it was i^. i^t/. 
 per mile, about 13^. 6d. per trip, for three trips, a 
 day. I am mentioning these details as a record of 
 
AYLESBURY RAILWAY 193 
 
 a poor struggling line. We were all greatly pleased 
 that our efforts had been crowned with success, but 
 the traffic had to be obtained and developed. In 
 this we were thwarted by obstacles created by the 
 London and North-Western at every one of their 
 stations. As an instance, passengers from Oxford, 
 Banbury, Buckingham, or Bicester, who wished to 
 go to Aylesbury, were carried past our junction 
 at Verney to Bletchley, nine miles, then to 
 Leighton Buzzard, seven, to Cheddington five, and 
 finishing another seven miles at Aylesbury, making 
 altogether twenty-eight miles with two changes, 
 when they could have travelled via Verney on the 
 'A and B ' rail without change for twelve miles; and 
 this was done, notwithstanding every attempt being 
 made by us at all seven stations, to show the advantages 
 of the new route. I found on inspection that these 
 placards were hidden behind doors and other notices 
 put over them. Coal traffic was diverted for thirty 
 miles after passing Verney junction, and sent to 
 Oxford on to the Great Western broad gauge line. 
 The rates per ton per mile of coal were charged 
 4</. per ton if brought by ' A and B,' and only \d. per 
 mile by Great Western Railway ; thus, for seven 
 miles to Princes Risbro' 2s. ^d. per ton was charged 
 which could be sent by other lines for yd. 
 
 Shordy after our Bill had been first obtained in 
 1862, Mr. Brydone, Mr. Rummens, and myself busied 
 ourselves with an improved approach to London, 
 going carefully over the country, through Wendover, 
 Missenden, Amersham to Rickmersworth, Watford 
 
194 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 and district, also to Harrow and Uxbridge. We pro- 
 jected a line direct to the Metropolis, this having 
 been, as I knew, a part of old George Stephenson's 
 original line from London into the North, but as the 
 authorities at Euston objected, we abandoned it to a 
 future opportunity. It would be useless to attempt a 
 record of the varied fortune which attended the appli- 
 cations to Parliament for a line up this Missenden 
 valley, until at last the Duke of Buckingham and 
 myself persuaded Sir Edward Watkin, with his 
 right hand. Sir Myles Fenton, to join the Board of 
 the ' A and B ' line, which in the end they agreed to 
 do, on vacancies being arranged for them. There- 
 after the new line was vigorously taken up ; and 
 finally, after nearly thirty years of frustrated 
 endeavour, the Act was obtained, and the line com- 
 pleted and opened from Baker Street to Aylesbury. 
 And a further development was projected, viz. the 
 bold scheme of purchasing the despised Aylesbury 
 and Buckingham, thus continuing the railway into 
 the North, and joining the Manchester, Sheffield, 
 and Lincolnshire line. This was looked on as too 
 Utopian for serious consideration, but through the 
 determined action of Sir Edward Watkin, who, as 
 Chairman of the Metropolitan, had succeeded in 
 purchasing the 'A and B ' Co. for 100,000/., the line 
 having cost us 167,000/., and had never earned a 
 shillincj for the shareholders, nor had the directors 
 ever received a farthing for their services, or their 
 expenses. This purchase gave the Metropolitan 
 Company an advance of fifty-six miles to the 
 
DIRECTORS' ADVANCES IGNORED 195 
 
 North, from London. Despite the violent opposition 
 of all the northern lines, assisted also by the 
 Great Western Company, the Act of Parliament 
 was obtained, and the line is now in course of 
 construction, and when completed the new Metro- 
 politan station will be erected in the Marylebone 
 Road, affording an entirely new route into the 
 north by means of the much despised, and well 
 sneered at, condemned little line, immortalised, as 
 it was, as the 'A and B.' Mr. Rummens, the chair- 
 man and original contractor, is now gone to his 
 grave, after successfully opposing the honest claims 
 of the original directors, for the advances they had 
 made to construct and complete the line. He, as the 
 largest shareholder, objected to all claims which 
 militated against the value of his shares, and through 
 the quibbles raised in the Court of Chancery 
 lost us many thousands of pounds, depriving me 
 alone of over 4,000/. I had the honour of 
 representing this company in the Railway Clearing 
 House for nearly twenty years, and had an 
 opportunity of meeting many delightful, business-like 
 men, as representatives of all the great railways in 
 the kingdom, whose agreeable companionship will 
 never be forgotten by me. 
 
 02 
 
196 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Altona — Judge in agricultural department at the great Schleswig- 
 Holstein Exhibition — My fellow jurors — The officials' utter 
 ignorance of 'management' — Chaos — Assisted by the English 
 exhibitors, orderly arrangement effected — Awards — Trials of imple- 
 ments : difficulties that had to be removed — Thrashing machines : 
 Walter Wood his own driver — He wins the first prize — Horticultural 
 Show at Hamburgh — The success of the English — Liverpool grapes 
 win against all comers — Shabby treatment of the judge — Non- 
 payment of services and out-of-pocket expenses — Journey home — 
 Borrowing money to get there — Opinion of foreign agriculture — 
 The all-round superiority of English methods. 
 
 At the great exhibition proposed to be held at 
 Altona, in Schleswig-Holstein, I was selected as 
 one of the judges to serve on the jury for live-stock 
 and implements, as representing England. I started 
 on a Wednesday afternoon from home, and as I was 
 to be at Hamburg on Friday evening, I was obliged 
 to travel by the quickest route, and therefore went via 
 Calais, Brussels, and Dusseldorf As I could not 
 speak a word of German I had my misgivings as 
 to how I should fare on the journey. However, on 
 entering my railway carriage at Brussels, I found a 
 Herr Lowenthal, hailing from Liverpool, where he 
 had been settled for some years as the representative 
 of a leading German house, who spoke English as 
 correctly as he did his own language. He proved 
 a most agreeable companion, and of great service. 
 
HARBURGH AND HAMBURGH 197 
 
 The country struck me as extremely picturesque, 
 and was otherwise interesting. On arriving at 
 Hanover my companion had to leave me, as he 
 was going forward to Berlin. He urged me to 
 alight for a few hours, when he would introduce me 
 to his friends. I accepted his kind invitation, and 
 was thereby enabled to obtain a glimpse of this very 
 charming city. I had the pleasure of meeting his 
 sister, who had married a cloth manufacturer in 
 Hanover, who had an excellent house, and gave 
 us a capital luncheon. I was conducted through 
 some of the principal streets, and was much struck 
 with the quaint early mediaeval architecture, 
 especially with the splendid red brickwork of the 
 houses and chief buildings. The cathedral is very 
 fine, built entirely of red brick, as is also the palace 
 of King George of Hanover, first cousin to our 
 beloved Queen. I was shown a ' biere hall ' of rare 
 beauty, where I drank some very good beer. After 
 bidding adieu to my friend, I started again on my 
 journey, reaching a place called Harburgh, on the 
 southern bank of the Elbe, where we were to be 
 carried over the river on a ferry to an island, half- 
 way across the broad stream. On arriving at Har- 
 burgh I was addressed by a polite young man, 
 speaking English well, who recommended me to take 
 a carriage and horses as the best mode of crossing 
 the river towards my destination. He led me to 
 believe that this was the only means of crossing, 
 and ordered my carriage accordingly. I paid him 
 nearly one pound for the journey. On arriving at 
 
198 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 the ferry, I was surprised to find myself packed 
 tightly between two or three omnibuses, carts with 
 merchandise, gigs, and other vehicles, and on arriving 
 at Hamburgh, my carriage and horses trotted me 
 away to the ' Hotel de I'Europe,' and then I dis- 
 covered that for about one franc I could have come 
 by either omnibus. But my polite acquaintance 
 had led me to believe that the best, if not the 
 sole, conveyance was in the recommended carriage, 
 for good, if dishonest reasons. He was the owner 
 of the vehicle I had hired, and In that character had 
 plundered me. 
 
 Hamburgh is a beautiful city. The chief feature 
 of the place is the lake called the ' Grosser Alster,' 
 near the centre of the city, on three sides of which 
 runs a broad road, planted with avenues of fine 
 trees. Around this piece of water are erected the 
 public buildings, the principal hotels, banks, and 
 theatres. The avenues are thronged with people ; 
 the lake (with its flocks of swans) has a fleet of 
 small steamers crossing and recrossing, well laden 
 with passengers. The more populous parts of 
 Hamburgh are on the banks of the Elbe, which is a 
 wide deep river, enabling ships of large size to 
 discharge cargo on the extensive quays. The 
 houses in this quarter are extremely picturesque, 
 and chiefly date from the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries. Some years ago a disastrous fire broke 
 out, and consumed more than half the city. Until 
 then it was the largest ever known since the 
 Great Fire of London in 1666. Amongst the most 
 
MY BROTHER JURORS 199 
 
 terrible of the incidental catastrophes was the 
 destruction of the ancient cathedral, which, however, 
 has been replaced by a splendid successor, designed 
 and carried to completion by our talented English- 
 man, Sir Gilbert Scott. 
 
 The morning after my arrival, the English 
 agent, Mr. Shillitoe, conducted me in a fiaci'c to 
 the town of Altona, which is about three miles from 
 Hamburgh, and connected with it by the town of 
 St. Pauli, which is a charming suburb. On arriving 
 at the exhibition, I found a very imposing building 
 of great extent. I was presented to Herr Von Postau, 
 the Burgomaster, a most agreeable and intelligent 
 gentleman, who spoke English fluently. I was there- 
 upon introduced to my fellow members, of the 
 jury, amongst whom were Danes, Swedes, Russians, 
 Germans, Hanoverians, and Belgians, about four- 
 teen in all. I myself alone represented England, 
 the French forming a jury of themselves, who kept 
 aloof and stayed altogether at an hotel. This was very 
 strange, although we were in Danish territory, or 
 more properly in Schleswig-Holstein. My brother 
 judges were gentlemanlike men, nearly all of 
 whom spoke English. On entering the show-yard 
 such a scene presented itself as I had never wit- 
 nessed before. Everything was in confusion. Sheep 
 were placed in pens mixed up with pigs, cattle with 
 horses, poultry with dogs, no evidence of order or 
 arrangement visible from one end of the building 
 to the other. Pens were numbered, but not con- 
 secutively, the numbers having been attached without 
 
200 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 any attempt at classification. And there was 
 elaborate blundering as well as confusion. Sheep 
 were in pens under the head of ' pigs,' and, in short, 
 everything appeared in an inextricable muddle. The 
 fact was, that no great exhibition had ever before been 
 held in the country, and there was no one to put things 
 right, or any authority peremptorily directing the 
 whole. Mr. Shillitoe, it appeared, was only manager 
 of the dogs and poultry, and was utterly ignorant of 
 everything else. Fortunately, the late Mr. Clarke, at 
 that time the very able agent to Lord Chesham, with 
 Messrs. Duckering, of Yorkshire pig fame, and a 
 few others who were old hands at our English 
 agricultural shows, were present; so with their assist- 
 ance we set to work, literally taking off our coats, 
 and put the live stock somehow into order. My 
 fellow judges also assisted to the best of their ability, 
 and by the evening we had reorganised the classes 
 so as to enable us to commence judging on the 
 morrow. That happened to be Sunday, so little 
 was done, and with my English acquaintances we 
 paid a visit to a very charming place on the banks 
 of the Elbe, called Blankenese, a sort of Richmond, 
 about five miles distant. We had an excellent 
 dinner, and after enjoying the lovely scenery, came 
 back to Hamburgh in good time to visit some of the 
 sights of the city. 
 
 On Monday we began in earnest. The live stock 
 was fairly good, but the British exhibitors carried 
 everything before them, and Lord Chesham 's Shrop- 
 shire sheep excited much admiration. I was able to 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE JURORS 201 
 
 do some work that day in the implement department. 
 That evening we attended a sumptuous entertainment 
 given to the juries and chief officials by the Burgo- 
 master. Nothing could have been in better taste, and 
 every attention, with due honour, was paid to us by 
 Herr Von Postau and his colleagues. To show 
 the utter ignorance of our Holstein friends of our 
 English system of awarding prizes, they knew 
 nothing whatever of a trial ; and when I told 
 them that I should not think of giving a prize hap- 
 hazard, without a practical proof of the utility of the 
 implement, they were astonished. I was desirous 
 of showing the visitors to the show the value 
 of a thrashing-machine, which only a very 
 few people had ever seen. I prevailed on them 
 to give me a load of sheaves of corn, and the 
 next day put in operation one of Marshall's (of 
 Gainsborough) thrashers, to whom we gave the silver 
 medal. I shall never forget the astonishment of the 
 bystanders when they saw the sheaves enter the 
 machine at the top, and on my catching in my hands 
 the corn as it emerged from the spouts already fit 
 for market, at one operation : their astonishment was 
 unbounded. The same occurred when I persuaded 
 the authorities to supply us with a few acres of 
 standing grass, or clover, to try the mowing- 
 machines. These acres were placed at my disposal, 
 and I was accompanied by most of the judges, 
 including some Frenchmen, none of whom had ever 
 seen one of these invaluable machines at work. 
 When Mr. Walter Wood, the well known American 
 
202 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 inventor, drove a pair of horses himself, and the 
 grass fell down in even swathes before it, I never 
 beheld such bewildered surprise at the efficacy of 
 the machine. We gave it first prize. So it was 
 with other machines, and I am glad to state that our 
 English implement makers reaped a rich harvest 
 from the exhibition at Altona. 
 
 There was a most wonderful horticultural show 
 held at the same time on the banks of the Elbe at 
 Hamburgh, which was somewhat of a rival to the Agri- 
 cultural Exhibition at Altona. Indeed, there existed 
 some rivalry and jealousy between the two places. 
 This show was one of the most splendid sights I ever 
 witnessed. One of the chief attractions was the com- 
 petition of Hamburgh grapes, for the prize of a piece 
 of plate presented by our Most Gracious Queen, as 
 a compliment to the city, open to all comers. This 
 much coveted trophy was competed for by the 
 principal growers from Italy, Germany, France, 
 Belgium, and even distant Spain and Portugal. But, 
 to their dismay and astonishment, our Mr. Meredith 
 from Liverpool beat them all easily! His grapes, 
 both in size and in colour, were so immeasurably 
 before them, that they could not credit that these 
 could have been grown in a country where the sun 
 scarcely ever shone, and the climate of which was 
 made up of fogs and rain ! 
 
 During the week my eldest son, John, came over 
 to see me, accompanied by the late Lord Chesham ; 
 and as it was doubtful whether I should ever have 
 a better opportunity of either seeing by myself, ur 
 
BERLIN AND POTSDAM 203 
 
 showing him, the most attractive features of the Con- 
 tinent, I determined to extend my visit to Berlin. I 
 may add that, notwithstanding the promises of the 
 promoters and leading officials connected with the ex- 
 hibition, / never received one farthing for viy services, 
 not even my travelling expenses, nor the amount of my 
 hotel bill \ Needless to say that I left the city with 
 rather unpleasant feelings. We passed vid Brunswick 
 to Berlin, visiting Potsdam, and to Dresden and 
 Saxon, Switzerland, returning vid Leipsic and 
 Cologne, touching at several of the more famous 
 cities in Belgium, and paying a visit to the field of 
 Waterloo, then vid Calais home, with an empty 
 purse. Indeed, had it not been for the kind assist- 
 ance of a stranger, whom I chanced to meet in 
 Calais, a fellow passenger, I should not have been 
 able to pay my way through to London. Thus ended 
 my Schleswig-Holstein experiences at Altona. I 
 have since heard that it was no uncommon occurrence 
 for English judges to be disappointed at receiving 
 their accustomed charges on the Continent. My 
 advice, therefore, to all my friends is, to have ' the 
 money down ' before they leave home to perform any 
 official function at a foreign agricultural exhibition. 
 My impression is again confirmed, that in agriculture 
 our own country is far in advance, in its practical 
 results, to every other. 
 
204 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 Amsterdam — Appointed a judge at the great Exhibition — The journey 
 thither — The PouUry Show — My son Robert wins the gold medals 
 for poultry and water-fowl — Extraordinary weight of prize birds — 
 Paul Potter's bull — ' A wretch ' of a beast — Curious facts in heredity 
 — The famous bull as a picture — Description — The Alderney Bull, 
 by James Ward, R.A. — ' Duke of Connaught ' — Trotting matches 
 — Dutch cattle — Milk production and bacon — Tranquil beauty of 
 the Low Countries — The Dutch : their thrift, cleanliness, and 
 industry — The bulb-farms at Haarlem. 
 
 Another expedition which I made to the Continent 
 was to an important agricultural show at Amsterdam, 
 where I had been asked to officiate as one of the 
 jurors or judges. I was selected as a member of the 
 jury for ' implements,' more especially in relation to 
 the buildings, appliances, and so forth, employed 
 in poultry-rearing for the farmyard, and in the 
 breedings and cultivation of water-fowl. Thisexhibi- 
 tion formed part of a more extended one to celebrate 
 the opening of the new public building for a 
 Museum of Art and Manufactures in Holland. 
 My son Robert, who had managed the well-known 
 poultry establishment on my holding, the Prebendal 
 Farm at Aylesbury, was a large exhibitor in live 
 stock, and glad of the opportunity of accompanying 
 me on the journey. We started from Queenborough 
 to Flushing, and hurried on to the ' Venice of the 
 
DUCKS & GEESE AT AMSTERDAM 205 
 
 North ' as quickly as we could. The poultry had 
 been started, via Harwich, a few days in advance. 
 We found, on our arrival, that they had been delivered 
 the day before, and were in excellent condition. 
 We stayed at an admirable hotel, the ' Old Doelen,' 
 which had been rebuilt since I had visited Amsterdam 
 some years previously. I found that the city of 
 Rembrandt was no longer entitled to be called the 
 'Venice of the North,' with her streets of water, as 
 many of the old canals had been filled up, after 
 large drains had been laid, causing a vast improve- 
 ment in the sanitary state of the city, and no longer 
 rivalling in its odours the stenches of Cologne, which 
 Coleridge counted. The Dutch Government had 
 been for some years building a receptacle for their 
 art treasures, and as it was now complete, it was 
 decided to open the edifice with a great exhibition 
 for Agriculture, Science, and the Fine Arts. My son, 
 I may observe, was extremely successful, carrying 
 off many prizes, with the special Gold medal for the 
 best collection of poultry, and the same for the 
 highest classes of water-fowl. Such specimens, 
 indeed, had never been before seen in Holland. The 
 Aylesbury ducks, with the Rouens, Pekins, and 
 Cayugas, were matchless, a pair of the Aylesburys 
 weighing 2 1 lb. The geese were enormous, a 
 Toulouse gander scaling 37 lb., and a goose 32 lb., 
 together weighing 69 lb. ! I was naturally proud of 
 the achievements of my farm. 
 
 The arrangements of the show were admirable 
 in every department, and therefore in marked con- 
 
2o6 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 trast to Altona some years before. One of the 
 great features of the exhibition, of course, was the 
 gallery set apart for paintings and statuary, and was 
 naturally intended for their future reception, and to 
 be worthy of the priceless treasures painted by the 
 most distinguished painters of the fourteenth, 
 fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. Many of the 
 finest pictures from the Hague, from Haarlem, and 
 other places had been removed and brought into one 
 centre, making a magnificent collection of the finest 
 examples of the painters of the Low Countries. The 
 famous ' Young Bull ' of Paul Potter is the 
 portrait of an animal I should scorn to see in 
 any decent herd in England, but I am bound to 
 agree with those connoisseurs who declare the 
 picture to be the perfection of a truly poetic compo- 
 sition. However, the bull, the animal himself, is 
 such a wretch that I would not have allowed him 
 to look over a hedge into the field where my short- 
 horns were grazing. It is possible that Paul Potter 
 considered him a fairly good specimen of the cattle 
 at the time, as they existed in Holland. It is 
 perhaps probable that the English cattle at that 
 period might have been of the same class. On that 
 reasonable assumption, we may conclude that our 
 cattle have made immense progress since then in 
 shape, colour, and quality. The great attention 
 paid by us for nearly a century in registering our 
 stock in the Shorthorn Herd-book, as also in 
 the Herd-books of other distinct breeds, has 
 tended to create a wonderful improvement in our 
 breeds. Yet, with all our care, remarkable Instances 
 
B I 
 
 a ^ 
 
 
HEREDITY IN CATTLE BREEDING 207 
 
 of atavism of types in colour continually recur. 
 For instance, the white face of the Hereford was 
 unmistakably a recurrence to the Chillingham 
 white cattle, which have black noses. The latter 
 peculiarity is sometimes found in animals with the 
 choicest and longest pedigrees of our best lines of 
 blood. It is well-known that the late Lady Pigott, 
 an eminent shorthorn breeder, had found her cattle 
 were yearly getting lighter in colour, with many 
 absolutely white. Complaining of this to a visitor, a 
 first-class breeder, he said that her desire to keep her 
 places perfectly clean by annual whitewashing of the 
 whole of the buildings, inside and out, was probably 
 the cause ; and suggested that she should put some 
 red ochre or umber in the wash. This she accord- 
 ingly ordered should be done, and in three or four 
 years her colours regained their original shade. In 
 fact, ' heredity ' crops out in breeding of horses, 
 cattle, sheep, and dogs in a remarkable degree, and 
 peculiarities, after lying dormant for many genera- 
 tions, appear when least expected. I took occasion 
 to deal somewhat exhaustively with this interesting 
 question in breeding, in a paper which I read some 
 years ago at the Central Farmers' Club. Therein 
 I showed the influence of the male animal on the 
 external appearances of the offspring, and proved 
 this by Lord Moreton's cross of a ' Ouagga ' or 
 ' Zebra ' on a thorough-bred mare. The colt was 
 striped like the sire, which markings continued for 
 three generations, the stripes showing fainter each 
 successive year, although the mare had never again 
 been served by a Quagga. 
 
2o8 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 Our American cousins, utilising my contention 
 some few years ago, determined to cross their own 
 home-bred cattle with Hereford bulls, to provide addi- 
 tional facilities for supplying beef to the English 
 market. When I was judging at the Herefordshire 
 show, I found out that all the young bull calves, of the 
 best breeders, were bespoken for more than a year 
 in advance, at exceptionally good prices, but in four 
 or five years it was discovered that the size of their 
 widely-spreading horns prevented their being packed 
 easily in the railway trucks for Chicago. Conse- 
 quently the American breeders rapidly dispensed 
 with the Herefords, and they now cross their cattle 
 with the Polled Angus breed, which have equally 
 good fattening powers, but, as their name implies, 
 have no horns whatever. 
 
 But to return to our muttons, or rather to our 
 beef Paul Potter's bull is a red, poorly-shaped 
 animal, somewhat low in condition, but he has 
 exceptionally good hair on him, and the manner in 
 which that is painted shows extraordinary skill. On 
 the point of his shoulders, where the hair is longest, 
 summer flies are creeping about, and there are flies 
 also buzzing over the back of the famous beast. The 
 bull has his head up, and is bleating to call the 
 attention of some cows in a far off pasture. The 
 saliva is falling from his tongue and his open mouth. 
 He has evidently been licking the flies off his sides, 
 and the marks of his tongue are ivet with saliva, and 
 
 ' ' The Hague, with its splendid Rembrandts and over-rated Paul 
 
 Potter.' Henry Stacy Marks, R..^., in Pen and Pentil Sketches. 
 
PAUL POTTER'S BULL 209 
 
 appear as fresh as if the bull had just licked him- 
 self. Two cows are lazily lying down chewing their 
 cud ; close by are two or three sheep, and in the 
 near foreground there is a yellow-skinned frog, ti^et 
 with his recent visit to the dyke. Leaning over a 
 rail, under a tree, is a man watching the live stock. 
 The atmosphere is moistly hot, and is atmosphere ! 
 Yet fine and dexterous as the picture is, one regrets 
 that a nobler bull has not had his portrait handed 
 down to posterity. I do not mean to affirm that a 
 sleek, highly-bred symmetrical shorthorn would have 
 made so perfect an agricultural idyll. But the mongrel 
 depicted by the great Dutch master, Paul Potter, 
 is possibly a painter's, but certainly not a breeder's 
 bull. James Ward, R.A., painted his great picture, 
 the ' Alderney Bull,' which is now in our National 
 Gallery, to rival the bull of Paul Potter. But the 
 style of each work is so utterly distinct that no one 
 could possibly put them together. How totally 
 different is Paul Potter's bull from the beautiful young 
 shorthorn ' Duke of Connaught,' bred by and sold 
 at the Earl of Dunmore's sale, and bought by Lord 
 Fitzhardinge for 4,500 guineas! Immense benefit 
 has been conferred on the Continent by the exhibi- 
 tions held there of late years. Many of our leading 
 breeders have sent over their cattle, sheep, and pigs, 
 and have invariably come off with flying colours, 
 and have generally sold their exhibits at fairly good 
 prices. When at Vienna I sold my first prize young 
 roan shorthorn bull, ' Royal Geneva,' of the best 
 Bates and Knightley strain of blood, for 1,400 florins 
 
 p 
 
2IO RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 to Count Polanowski, of Christianople, in Galicia. 
 The public were astounded, as such a price had 
 never before been heard of in Austro- Hungary, but 
 to Englishmen it was a bad price. However, in 
 little more than a year afterwards, the Count wrote 
 to me, saying he believed that the introduction of 
 that sire into his country would completely revolu- 
 tionise the breed of cattle, as the first cross on their 
 native herds was most remarkable, and people were 
 sending for his bull calves both far and near. 
 
 I was not aware until my visit to Amsterdam 
 that the Dutchmen, like our Transatlantic cousins, 
 were admirers of trotting matches. Yet so it proved. 
 A track of nearly a mile in length had been pre- 
 pared, with commodious stands for the spectators, 
 one being set apart for Government officials and 
 their friends. To this, as one of the judges, I was 
 admitted. It was most amusing to see the ' get up ' 
 of some of the drivers, or jockeys. Several were fat, 
 burly fellows, as though the weight made but little 
 difference, some weighing fourteen stone, others 
 about eight stone. The jockeys drove with loud 
 shouts, and, amidst the laughter of the spectators, 
 oftentimes came to grief by catching the wheels of 
 their opponents. There was a large crowd of 
 spectatrrs, which included many ladies in native 
 costume. Altogether, I was pleased with my visit. 
 The people were hospitable, kind, and considerate. 
 The accommodation at the hotels was cleanliness 
 itself, and the ' aiisine ' all that could be desired. 
 As to the agriculture of the Low Countries, there is 
 
DUTCH CATTLE 211 
 
 but little, as the country is chiefly pasture, but such 
 ploughed land as I saw was admirably cultivated 
 and very clean. The cattle are large, massive 
 animals, with but little quality for meat production, 
 yet deep milkers, often giving twenty to twenty-four 
 quarts of milk per day. But it is of very inferior 
 quality for butter making, being greatly deficient in 
 cream. I believe a well-bred Guernsey or Jersey 
 cow would produce as much butter as two Dutch 
 cows, even if she were but half the size. This 
 accounts for the small number of Dutch cows im- 
 ported into England. They are almost entirely of 
 one type, black and white in colour, large frames, 
 with hard touch, and not very enticing looking. The 
 sheep are mostly long wools, rather light scrags, and 
 longer on the leg than ours. The Dutch and the 
 Danes are turning their attention to pigs and bacon- 
 curing, in which they succeed, and are exporting 
 largely in butter, bacon, and milk, to England. I 
 really love this country, and prefer the flat ' Cuyp ' 
 looking meadows, with the lazy cattle stretched 
 out on the rich pastures, the homely and industrious 
 people, and their stolid and imperturbable, yet 
 pleasing and agreeable manners, to the majestic 
 scenery and rugged mountains of the Tyrol and 
 Switzerland. The history and antiquities, the art 
 treasures — including the masterpieces of Franz Hals 
 — cathedral and bulb-farms of Haarlem, which I 
 visited, tempt me to prolong the account of my 
 Dutch impressions. But I must perforce dismiss 
 the subject with a word or two about the bulbs. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 Acres upon acres of tulips, hyacinths, crocuses, hHes, 
 &c., are a wonder to be seen and never to be for- 
 gotten by such an old amateur as myself The soil 
 is admirably adapted for rearing the young bulbs, 
 being a soft, mellow sand, and climate moist and 
 mild. 
 
213 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 The myths and monastic legends of Buckinghamshire — St. Osyth — 
 Rip Van Winkle and the Seven Sleepers — The beheading and 
 miraculous restoration of St. Osyth — The Nun's Wood and fountain 
 — Existing local traditions — Sacred wells — 'The Holy Touch' — 
 Hartwell and Dr. Lee. 
 
 Many parts of our dear old country have their 
 myths and legends, and in the course of my investi- 
 gations I have discovered not a few stories worthy 
 of preservation. Of all the saints whose lives, both 
 real and apocryphal, have been recorded, none 
 is more curious than that of the devout lady, 
 St. Osyth. Many miraculous stories are told of her, 
 but I am persuaded that there is much truth inter- 
 woven with the legends. The faith of the people 
 was so great in her sanctity, that she became one 
 of the best known and best beloved of the holy 
 women of the early middle ages. From the best 
 authorities I glean what a holy life this blessed 
 woman led. The mysterious legend of the saint 
 (Osyth) which I had often heard of in my native 
 district, is clothed with so much dramatic and tragic 
 interest, I have retold it and made it one of the 
 chapters of my book. Before writing of St. Osyth 
 I may, however, remark, that frequently stories and 
 legends crop up which, on investigation, show that 
 
214 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 they originated centuries before they became part of 
 the belief of more modern times. Take, for example, 
 that really touching and beautiful legend of ' Rip 
 Van Winkle.' This is merely a revival of the story 
 of the ' Seven Sleepers,' which belongs to the time 
 of Theodosius, and the conquest of Africa by the 
 Vandals. It is stated that after the seven noble 
 Christian youths of Ephesus had been concealed in 
 a cave, to save themselves from persecution, they fell 
 into a deep slumber, and without injuring the powers 
 of life, they awoke after they had been in concealment 
 for 187 years. On awaking, they thought they had 
 only slept a few hours ! and feeling very hungry, 
 they sent one of their number secretly, with orders 
 to return to the city, after purchasing food for his 
 companions. On the youth going to his native 
 city, he could no longer recognise it, and he was 
 surprised at seeing over the principal gate of 
 Ephesus a large cross, and on going to a baker's for 
 bread, his singular dress and his language con- 
 founded the baker, and when he offered for payment 
 an ancient coin of Decius, as a current coin of the 
 Empire, the poor youth was dragged before the judge, 
 on suspicion of having found a secret treasure. After 
 mutual inquiries they made the amazing discovery 
 that nearly two centuries had elapsed since they had 
 escaped from their Pagan tyrant. The Bishop of 
 Ephesus, accompanied by the magistrates, and even 
 by the Emperor Theodosius himself hastened to visit 
 the cave of the Seven Sleepers, when they related 
 their story, and on receiving the benediction of the 
 
ST. OSYTH— HER PARENTAGE 215 
 
 Bishop, on the same instant they immediately expired. 
 Here we have a real counterpart, slightly varied, of 
 ' Rip Van Winkle,' which I have always regarded 
 as a most pathetic story ; and I shall never forget 
 the beautiful embodiment of the character by Mr. 
 Jefferson, the famous American actor. Wynkyn de 
 Worde, in a book printed by him in 15 16, mentions 
 St. Osyth, and other authorities say that she was born 
 at Quarrendon, in Bucks, about two miles from the 
 county town of Aylesbury. She was the daughter 
 of Frithwald, the first Christian king of the East 
 Angles, and of Wilburga, his wife, who was the 
 daughter of Penda, King of Mercia, who lived at 
 Quarrendon. When very young she was entrusted to 
 the care of St. Modwen, at Polesworth, in Warwick- 
 shire. Whilst there, she was sent with a book, from 
 her aunt, St. Eaditha, to St. Modwen, and fell off a 
 bridge into the river, where she was drowned. She 
 remained in the water three days, and was restored 
 to life by the prayers of St. Modwen. She was 
 then betrothed to Sighere, King of Essex, and on 
 the same day obtained his consent to live always as 
 a virgin. Her husband consented to her taking 
 the veil, and gave her the village of Chich, near 
 Colchester, where a nunnery was built, and she 
 became abbess. 
 
 The Danes, under Inguar and Hubba, ravaged 
 the country, and because St. Osyth refused to 
 worship their gods, they cut off her head, when, as 
 is reported, she took up her head in her hands, and 
 proceeded to the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, 
 
2i6 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 about half a mile away, when she stopped at the 
 church door, which was closed. She struck it with 
 her blood stained hands, when it immediately fell 
 prostrate. On the spot where she was beheaded a 
 fountain of water gushed forth, which was said to 
 cure all diseases. Much of this story is, of course, 
 incredible; but, according to Essex tradition, where 
 St. Osyth's martyrdom took place, was in ' Nun's 
 Wood,' and the fountain still takes its name from the 
 murdered abbess. The body of St. Osyth was 
 first buried in the church at Chich, and was soon 
 removed by her father and mother to Aylesbury, 
 where many miracles were performed at her shrine 
 there. About forty-six years afterwards the body 
 was, by miraculous interposition, translated back 
 again to Chich. In an old Saxon manuscript it is 
 stated ' next resteth St. Osith at Cice, near the see 
 in St. Peter's minster,' where many miracles took 
 place. This saint was held in great veneration. 
 Matthew Paris tells a story of a husbandman named 
 ' Thurcillus,' living at Tistude, in Essex, in the reign 
 of King John, a.d. i 206, who was taken into hell and 
 paradise, where he saw Saints Catherine, Margaret, 
 and Osyth. Amongst the many curious legends of 
 this saint I find that Aubrey states that ' in those 
 days, when people went to bed, they did rake up their 
 fire, make a cross in the ashes, and pray to God and 
 St. Sythe (Osyth) to deliver them from fire andtrom 
 water, also from all misadventure.' According to 
 local tradition, on one night in every year St. Osyth 
 revisits the scene of her martyrdom, walking with 
 
ANCIENT HOLY WELLS 217 
 
 her head in her hands. A prayer to St. Osyth is 
 preserved amongst the Cole manuscripts in the 
 British Museum ; it is said to have been copied 
 from a manuscript of Edward IV. : ' Sancte Osithe 
 virginis et Martyris tue, Dfie, piis suppHcationibus 
 tribue nos foveri, ut cujus venerabilem solemnitatem 
 celebramus, ejus intercessionibus commendemur et 
 mentis.' Alban Butler, in his ' Lives of the Saints,' 
 corroborates most of the above records. There was a 
 special office for her at Lincoln, and she was invoked 
 with the saints. Her festival was held annually on 
 October 7, when special indulgences were granted. 
 As before stated, St. Osyth, like many other saints, 
 had a holy well dedicated to her, which Leland 
 describes ' as being at Querendune, betwixt Ayles- 
 bury and Querendune, a good mile from Ayles- 
 bury.' 
 
 There is a well, which I remember, at Dunsome, 
 near that town, which answers to this description. 
 It rises at the back of the farmhouse, and runs 
 through the dairy. The water is of delicious quality, 
 and it never fails through winter and summer. 
 There is scant necessity to remark that ' Sise Lane,' 
 in the City of London, takes its name from St. Sise, 
 or St. Osyth. It may not be out of place to call 
 attention to the great number of wells scattered 
 throughout the kingdom which have miraculous 
 powers attributed to them, wells that are generally 
 dedicated to some saint oftentimes of local celebrity ; 
 many which I have known along the base of the 
 Chiltern Hills, of great purity, springing from the 
 
2i8 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 water-bearing stratum of the chalk formation. One 
 of St. Edburg, at Ellesborough, from which prob- 
 ably the village took its name. There still exists 
 a well dedicated to Sir John Schorne, at North 
 Marston, which had great credit for curing the 
 ague. This local saint was a remarkable instance 
 of a corruption of words. The legend was, 
 
 Sir John Schorne, gentleman borne, 
 Conjured the devil into a boot. 
 
 There are old stone carvings and other representa- 
 tions of this feat, in which there is a large boot, 
 and the devil's head appearing at the top, and his 
 forked tail coming out at the bottom. There is, 
 however, little doubt that the legend means — that 
 the wonderful knight ' conjured,' or ' persuaded,' him 
 into a ' boot,' or an ' exchange,' for some supposed 
 service rendered. Throughout England holy wells 
 exist, many of great antiquity, most of them famed 
 for curing certain diseases. Notwithstanding their 
 sanctity, they were not so efficacious in curing 
 maladies as the 'royal touch,' as was shown by 
 one Wulwin, a Saxon, son of Wulmar, of the village 
 of Nutegershall (Ludgershall, in Bucks), who, after 
 hard labour in cutting down fuel in the wood at 
 Brill, in the neighbourhood, fell into a deep sleep, 
 and lost his sight for seventeen years ; and then, 
 upon the strength of it, dreamt that he went round to 
 eighty-seven churches, to beg relief from their re- 
 spective saints, and at last came blind to the King's 
 Court at Windsor, when he was immediately cured 
 by a touch of the King's hand. Various rites were 
 
APISTON MEN TAflP 219 
 
 performed at these wells, particularly on Holy 
 Thursday, when they were adorned with boughs of 
 trees, garlands of tulips, and other flowers, and it was 
 customary after service at the church to play and sing 
 at the wells. This is merely an ancient Roman custom, 
 and in ancient Rome ' Fontalia ' was a religious feast, 
 celebrated on October 5, in honour of nymphs of 
 wells and fountains. In Britain there are many 
 accounts of holy wells, to which the most extra- 
 ordinary properties and virtues are ascribed. At 
 some the sick persons were forewarned, if, in dipping 
 a garment in the water, it swam, they would recover, 
 if it sank, they would die. Oblations were always 
 given at holy wells, and visitors conceived that 
 the holy saints could not fail to accept them. 
 
 At Hartwell there is a never failing spring of 
 pure water, but, as far as I know, there is no legend 
 attached to it. Yet in after years it may be dedi- 
 cated to Doctor Lee, who has had it made accessible 
 for his numerous visitors to his teetotal festivals, and 
 has placed over it a stone slab, with the inscription 
 in Greek characters APISTON MEN TAflP, which 
 is believed by the common people to be an adjura- 
 tion to some saint. 
 
220 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 Poultry rearing for profit — Statistics of imports — Breeds that should 
 be adopted — Records of exhibition birds — Major-General Hassard 
 — Pheasant- rearing and the production of pheasants' eggs as a 
 profitable agricultural industry — Remarkable statistics — Prices of 
 eggs — Names of noted dealers — Accounts of profit and loss — 
 Numbers of eggs laid and young pheasants reared — Expenditure 
 on the establishment of a pheasant farm. 
 
 Amongst the minor industries recommended to be 
 practised by farmers to alleviate in some measure 
 the prevalent depression in agriculture, are poultry- 
 rearing and egg-production. I can thoroughly 
 endorse most of what has been said on this matter, 
 but as I have written so largely on this subject, and 
 have appeared as an exhibitor successfully in the 
 show-yard for so many years, I do not feel it either 
 desirable or useful to repeat a more than ' thrice 
 told tale.' Sufficient to say that I believe by a good 
 selection of birds a fairly profitable return can be 
 made, especially if the ladies of the household will 
 give their attention to the undertaking, and they 
 would find it a most interesting and instructive 
 occupation. But their attempts must be supported 
 by their lords and masters, by giving them some- 
 thing better from their granaries than the miserable 
 siftings and defective grains of their cereal crops. 
 
POULTRY & PHEASANT REARING 221 
 
 They should grant their ladies some portion of 
 reasonably good corn, even if the latter be somewhat 
 damaged, and should furnish them with good hous- 
 ing for the birds, both old and young. For egg 
 production I found Leghorns, of all colours, and 
 Minorcas to be the best layers. The Bramahs and 
 Cochins come on most profitably for winter laying. 
 Plymouth Rocks are hardy strong birds, and Indian 
 game are excellent for crossing with either of these 
 breeds for the table. It must not be forgotten that 
 the Dorking is undoubtedly the best flesh-forming 
 breed, but they do not thrive in all parts of England. 
 They are, however, most profitable on their own 
 native chalk downs, and generally upon dry soils. 
 The Spanish at one time were famous layers, and 
 very white-fleshed table birds, but the breeding for 
 the long pendant white wattles and large combs to 
 win in the show-yard, has lost that mostly desired 
 quality, namely, the capacity to produce a large 
 number of very fine pearly white eggs. That the 
 Aylesbury duck is by far the earliest variety goes 
 without saying. They make, for young ducklings 
 about seven weeks old, in March and April, from 
 14^. to 20^. a couple readily. They, however, seem 
 to degenerate after leaving their native district, and 
 a cross is necessary from the original stock every 
 three or four years. The Pekins, a very hardy 
 breed, crosses excellently with the Aylesbury, and 
 gives additional vitality to the young birds. The 
 Rouens are beautiful ducks, not very early, but 
 excellent layers and very hardy. The Cayugas are 
 
222 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 black, and when first brought to England were 
 large, heavy birds. I was the original importer, 
 and exhibited them for the first time at the Crystal 
 Palace, as also Pekin ducks. With regard to geese 
 I prefer the grey Toulouse, and have exhibited 
 them with great success at many shows. I have 
 won the first prize at Birmingham with a gander 
 weighing 2)1 '^s., and a goose weighing 32 lbs. 
 The white Embden are beautiful gees^j, but they 
 scarcely equal the Toulouse in weight. These 
 cross with the latter admirably. They have one 
 great peculiarity, viz., that the ganders of this cross 
 are almost invariably pure white, whilst the geese are 
 pied or mottled. As to turkeys, the old black Nor- 
 folk has almost entirely given way to the bronze 
 Cambridgeshire. I once had a present made me by 
 my old and valued friend. General Hassard, of 
 pigeon fame, both as a breeder and a judge, who, 
 whilst he was quartered with his regiment in Canada, 
 bought a wonderfully fine bronze wild cock turkey 
 or ' gobbler ' in Toronto, which had been brought 
 into the city under the arms of a Red Indian, caught 
 alive wild in the woods. He was, without excep- 
 tion, the handsomest and finest turkey ever seen in 
 England ; I won several prizes with him, and he 
 scaled 40 lbs. He is, I believe, the progenitor of 
 nearly all the best herds of bronze turkeys at our 
 show-yards. The General is a great authority on 
 prize poultry, and in the early days of the poultry 
 mania bred some of our best buff Cochins. 
 Amongst his brother officers in his artillery regiment 
 
EGG STATISTICS AND PHEASANTS 223 
 
 he was facetiously called ' Chicken Hazard.' When 
 it is considered that upwards of 1,300,000,000 eggs 
 are imported into this country annually, and the im- 
 ports of poultry and game, alive and dead, amount 
 to nearly 600,000/. per annum, it may well be 
 imagined what a branch of agricultural industry this 
 is ! Alas, like many other things, the times are 
 altered, yet there ought to be sufficient demand to 
 secure more attention to this industry, and, it is 
 hoped, to afford profit and pleasure to many a 
 country household. 
 
 The rearing of pheasants in confinement is also 
 a delightful and very profitable occupation. When 
 I lived at Lee, in Bucks, on the borders of Herts, I 
 had nearly three hundred hen pheasants. The birds 
 were kept in pens about sixteen feet square, made 
 with hurdles specially adapted for the purpose. Each 
 pen was composed of eight hurdles about seven feet 
 high and eight feet long, the lower half closely 
 railed, to prevent the birds from fighting and peck- 
 ing each other, also to protect them from the depre- 
 dations of cats, foxes, and other vermin. These 
 hurdles cost, when new, from Si', to lo.y. each. One 
 cock is put to six hens ; all have their wings cut 
 to prevent their flying over. A movable house on 
 wheels, costing about 10/., for sheltering the man in 
 charge, with three kennels for the dogs — which 
 were always kept on guard — a water trough in each 
 pen, and a few branches of holly, laurel, or other 
 evergreen, are placed in each enclosure. The hen 
 birds cost from 8^. to 12^. each, the cocks ^s. to 6s. 
 Thus it would take a capital of about 300/. to com- 
 
224 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 mence business, to which should be added loo/. for 
 wages, food, egg baskets, &c., till the following May 
 before any returns were made. With good manage- 
 ment the returns for eggs and young pheasants 
 would produce near upon 350/. The cost of food, 
 wages, repairs, dog feeding, carriage, and other 
 expenses, would be upwards of 180/., with rent and 
 four acres of land, leaving a substantial profit for a 
 most agreeable and interesting occupation. Within 
 a radius of eight miles from Lee, upwards of 10,000 
 hen pheasants were kept, and as each hen laid during 
 the season thirty eggs, upwards of 300,000 were laid, 
 and mostly sold. The price at the commencement 
 of the season early in April would be loci. each, or 
 10s. per doz., falling to ninepence after the first 
 fortnight, and dropping a penny a week till the 
 beginning of June, then it would descend to 5^'. or 
 6rt'. each egg ; when the price was below that sum, 
 the pheasant farmers began to set the eggs them- 
 selves ; by the middle of June there was a great 
 demand for barn-door sitting hens, which made 45^. 
 to 55. each. Seventeen to nineteen eggs are placed 
 under each hen, and about twelve young ones were 
 a fair number to hatch from each sitting. There 
 would be an average of seven young pheasants 
 reared to maturity. 
 
 Messrs. Dwight, who reside near Great Berk- 
 hamstead station, and Mr. Leno, of Co.\-Pond 
 Farm, near Hemel Hempstead, are the principal 
 dealers in that district, who take eggs from the 
 farmers, and then supply the gamekeepers of the 
 great preserves of England, and send eggs to every 
 
POULTRY AND PHEASANTS 225 
 
 part of the Continent, also to the United States and 
 the Colonies. The former firm keep 2,500 hens In 
 confinement, and in the height of the season send 
 off, from Berkhamstead station alone, over 70,000 
 eggs a week, and in September supply more than 
 50,000 live birds for the various battues in the 
 ensuing month. Mr. Leno also provides a large 
 quantity, but his business is chiefly abroad. Messrs. 
 Robb, of Liphook, in Hampshire, are as large 
 dealers as these mentioned. The breed now chiefly 
 used is the ring-necked variety ; the old brown or 
 ringless birds being nearly given up, but the cocks are 
 extensively used for crossing with the ring-necked. 
 They are considered a hardier variety, but not so 
 prolific. The Chinese is a remarkably beautiful 
 variety, and is often used to cross our own breeds. 
 The roaming propensity of these birds renders them 
 less useful than the others. It may thus be seen what 
 a great business this egg laying and pheasant rearing 
 has become. All the establishments I have men- 
 tioned are well worth a visit. Pheasant rearing can 
 only be profitably conducted on suitable soils, which 
 should be dry, and on tolerably high ground. The 
 chalk range of the Chilterns seems peculiarly adapted 
 for success. It may not be generally known that 
 the pheasant is a native of Persia. The ornamental 
 varieties are amongst the most beautiful of all the 
 feathered creation, more especially the Golden, the 
 Reeves, and the Impeyan birds ; these make a very 
 attractive addition to any ornamental grounds and 
 parks. 
 
 Q 
 
226 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 The homing instinct — Andre's pigeons — Mr. Tegetmeier — Curious 
 instances of homing instinct in the dog — Quaint epitaph — The 
 agricultural labourer — Dialects — The agricultural labourer's rustic 
 speech — His humour — The worth and native shrewdness of his 
 character — His industry — Wages and the cheap loaf— Old times 
 and new — Bounties on foreign grown sugar — The growth of flax 
 and hemp — A chance for English agriculture — ' The backbone of 
 Old England.' 
 
 As much interest is excited at the present time by 
 Andre's attempt to reach the North Pole, and a 
 discussion has arisen as to the reported arrival 
 of one or more of the homing pigeons which he 
 took with him, my old friend Mr. Tegetmeier 
 has raised the question as to the ' homing ' instinct 
 of various birds and animals. It may be interesting 
 to record an occurrence of which I was personally- 
 cognisant some years ago, illustrating the remark- 
 able instinct of dogs in finding their way home. 
 When the Queen's buckhounds, in the early 
 ' forties,' hunted the Vale of Aylesbury, the 
 hounds were brought down in a covered van from 
 Ascot Heath, by Gerrard's Cross, through Amersham, 
 a distance of forty miles. The pack was housed 
 in a large barn on their arrival at Aylesbury, and 
 the next day the hounds were taken to Cublington, 
 where the deer was to be uncarted, about eight 
 
CANINE INSTINCT 227 
 
 miles from the town. The deer took a line across 
 the country towards Winslow and Buckingham, 
 and on to Bletchley, where he was captured after a 
 very severe run of two hours. The horse I was riding 
 that day, was a well known old hunter, who tired 
 near to Winslow, and I was obliged to give it up. On 
 my return through the village of Hogston, I observed 
 in a field a stray hound wandering about, which I tried 
 to persuade into following me, but did not succeed. 
 That evening, when talking with Mr. Davis, the 
 celebrated Royal huntsman, his first whip, Harry 
 Freeman, came to him and said that one of the 
 hounds was missing. On my asking him if it was a 
 light coloured hound I was answered ' Yes, it was 
 Dairymaid.' I then informed him of what I had 
 seen at Hogston, and Freeman was directed to look 
 out for her. The next day Mr. Davis received 
 a letter from his wife, stating that they were 
 awakened that morning, about five o'clock, by the 
 crying of a hound, and one of the men discovered 
 Dairymaid at the door of the kennels. Here 
 was a marvellous proof of a ' homing instinct ' 
 which was most surprising. The dog had been 
 brought in a covered van for forty miles, along a 
 turnpike road ; taken for eight miles in an oppo- 
 site direction to the meet, then, crossing a wild 
 country, to Whaddon Chase ; and from two 
 o'clock in the afternoon, when I saw her, she must 
 have travelled at least fifty miles over a perfectly 
 strange country, and by three o'clock the next 
 morning, in a dark November night, she arrived 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 safely at her kennels in about thirteen hours. But 
 here is another story still more wonderful. In the 
 beginning of this century, when I was a young man, 
 my father told me that whilst living at Amersham, 
 the Right Hon. Mr. Ward, who, I believe, was then 
 a Lord of the Admiralty, and lived at Hyde Heath, 
 between Chesham and Amersham, had a very fine 
 highly bred Newfoundland puppy, which he prevailed 
 on my father to take charge of, and rear for him. 
 This he did ; and when the dog was nearly a year 
 old, Mr. Ward wished him to be sent to his 
 Yorkshire residence not far from Hull. There was 
 much difficulty in then forwarding anything a dis- 
 tance of two hundred miles, and no railways, or any 
 direct communication with the North, at that time 
 existed. The dog was therefore sent to London, 
 being tied under one of the broad-wheeled waggons 
 of the day, which was drawn by eight strong, heavy 
 horses, and carried produce to and from London. 
 The animal was then taken to the docks, and put on 
 board a Hull sailing packet, through the North Sea, 
 and up the H umber to Hull, where it was met and 
 taken to its destination some eight miles from the 
 port. A letter was received by my father, thanking 
 him for his attention, and informing him that the 
 dog was greatly admired, and had arrived quite 
 safely. About a fortnight afterwards everyone was 
 astonished at seeing the Newfoundland enter the 
 yard, wagging his tail, but very thin, tired, and dusty. 
 Here was instinct combined with reason. He must 
 have come along the Great North Road, as long 
 
MR. ELLIS AND PHILOLOGY 229 
 
 as he thought necessary, and then struck across 
 country for at least twenty miles, thus finding his 
 way to the home in which he was reared. Who 
 will therefore attempt to define where instinct ends 
 and reason begins ? Whilst writing of dogs and 
 sport, I am reminded of an epitaph which is worth 
 recording. It is against the north side of Harefield 
 Church. On the outside is a monument with a repre- 
 sentation in bas-relief of a gamekeeper and his dog, 
 put there by a Mr. Ashby in memory of a faithful 
 servant, Robert Morshead, who died in 1744 : 
 
 In frost and snow, through hail and rain, 
 He scoured the woods and trudged the plain. 
 The steady pointer leads the way. 
 Stands to the scent and springs the prey. 
 The timorous birds from stubble rise. 
 With pinions stretch'd divide the skies ; 
 The scattered lead pursues the sight, 
 And death and thunder stop the flight. 
 His spaniel, of true English kind, 
 With gratitude inflames his mind. 
 This servant in an honest way, 
 In all his actions copied ' Tray.' 
 
 Some few years since, whilst on my farm at 
 Aylesbury, I received a visit from Mr. Ellis, the 
 eminent philologist, who was desirous of testing, 
 by oral demonstration, the special dialects of 
 different parts of England. He brought some 
 letters of introduction with him, and after a very 
 interesting discussion on the peculiar pronunciation of 
 certain districts, we commenced an ordinary conver- 
 sation with the labourers while they were working on 
 the farm. This talk was with both old and young 
 
230 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 educated and uneducated. We spoke of the 
 ordinary occupations of each ; of horses with the 
 head ploughman, of sheep with shepherd, of high 
 pedigree shorthorns with the herdsman, and of various 
 operations with general workers. Mr. Ellis soon dis- 
 covered what he required, and brought to my notice 
 peculiarities which I had never noticed before, but 
 which I soon recognised, especially those expressions 
 and idioms which were peculiar to my district. 
 The endings of words, with their pronunciation and 
 flexions of language, were soon developed, and I 
 learnt for the first time how Buckinghamshire and 
 Oxfordshire differed from Yorkshire and Middlesex, 
 and how Somersetshire became, as it were, almost 
 a foreign language to the Northern Midland 
 Counties. Yet more to be noticed than the words 
 was the sing-song and chant of the Eastern 
 Counties, more noticeable in Norfolk and Suffolk 
 than in Essex. After this visit I received several 
 letters, with inquiries, from Mr. Ellis, and with the 
 assistance of my son Robert, who daily superintended 
 the work of the labourers on the farm, and others 
 in the town and neighbourhood, we prepared a 
 careful statement, which proved of considerable 
 utility in elucidating the subject. Much amusement 
 ensued from the extraordinary admixture of cause 
 and effect, which somehow my men had got into 
 their heads. Henry Baldwin, my well-known 
 attendant at all the poultry shows — abroad and at 
 home — and who was manager of the prize poultry 
 live stock, once said, in reference to the injury the 
 
KEEN OBSERVATIONS 231 
 
 rain was doing to the harvest : 'It's o' no use for 
 you to expect fine weather whilst these 'ere coiuicks 
 (comets) be about, and flying along the sky ' ; and 
 again he oracularly delivered himself : ' You may 
 always know when there would be rain whenever 
 you see them there rainbows a travelling along the 
 top of them hills.' This was in allusion to the range 
 of the Chilterns, which were about six miles distant, 
 and bounded the south of the vale of Aylesbury. 
 Another of the men had been ill, and had had the 
 doctor to attend on him, who told my son that he, 
 the doctor, had made a close examination of him, 
 and told him he was suffering from ' tar in his 
 stomick,' and that it had much alarmed him, as he 
 could not understand how the tar had got there, 
 and the doctor had told him he could not get well 
 till it was removed. My son, on inquiring of the 
 yEsculapius, found that he had said ' stomachic 
 catarrh.' Yet the observations of these men on 
 natural appearances are very keen, and from their 
 own long experience, and that of many, many years 
 observation of their ancestors, their curious infor- 
 mation could be almost implicitly depended on. 
 They tell you it is strange but true, that when the 
 cattle are lying about the pastures, quietly chewing 
 their cud, during heavy rain, it is certain to clear 
 up, with the probability of fine weather afterwards. 
 On a neighbouring farm, where one of the chief 
 grazing grounds was on the side of a steep hill, 
 the cattle invariably chose the highest part of 
 the ground during wet weather when fine was 
 
232 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 approaching. The bleating of sheep afforded the 
 shepherds climatic portents ; the movement of 
 insects had meaning. It is noteworthy that the 
 frog has a very golden skin when fine weather 
 prevails, or is expected. The cawing of rooks, the 
 crying of certain birds always portends a thunder- 
 storm. The buzzing and flying, as also the biting 
 of various insects, indicate changes In the weather. 
 There is a vein of quiet humour in the farm 
 labourer which is but little known. It is the fashion 
 to decry these honest good folk, and to give them 
 but little credit for astuteness and originality. My 
 experience is otherwise. I was accustomed at my 
 harvest home to entertain my men and their wives 
 at my residence in the town, and my wife gave them 
 prizes for the produce of their farm gardens. There 
 was a small lake in the grounds, with a boat upon 
 it, and the men with their wives were perambulating 
 the gardens, when it was considered a great 
 achievement to be able to get into the boat and row 
 on the water. The younger men were very desirous 
 of getting one of the older men, Harry Mason by 
 name, to venture into the boat, but nothing would 
 induce him to go. When John King, the head 
 ploughman said : ' Ah ! you'll never get old Harry 
 to leave old England ! ' alluding to his stepping off 
 the bank into the boat. At the supper, one of the 
 men remarked that he was a very quick feeder. 
 'Yes,' rejoined another, 'and you're a long time 
 about it.' After the meal sinoringf was the order of 
 the evening ; the chorus to the songs was somewhat 
 
COMPENSATION 233 
 
 uproarious, generally either deeply sentimental or 
 broadly humorous. I am bound to say that of 
 late the vulgarisms and coarseness of former years 
 have been abandoned, as also the drinking to ex- 
 cess, although there was no stint whatever. There 
 is no doubt that the harvest home, with the show 
 of vegetables, was a most popular festival. 
 
 Whilst writing of my farm labourers I am re- 
 minded of the Act passed this last session, the 
 'Workmen's Compensation Bill,' and I am bound to 
 express my doubts as to its practicability on farms. I 
 had most of the modern improved machinery for my 
 farm, and was the first tenant farmer who bought 
 his own steam cultivating apparatus. This was the 
 so-called round-about system of Smith, of Wolstone, 
 Bucks, who was without doubt the inventor of steam 
 cultivation. The means by which this cultivator 
 worked through and over the land was by the wire 
 rope passing round a block and pulley fixed at the 
 corners of the field, and was called an anchor. It 
 was necessary to have a strong active young man at 
 each anchor, to keep the wire rope in place while 
 it was working in the groove round the pulley. 
 The strictest orders and injunctions were given to 
 this watcher, that on no consideration was he to 
 handle this rope on the travelling side of the pulley, 
 and that if the rope slipped out of the groove, he 
 was to pull it into its place after it had passed the 
 anchor, as if it was otherwise handled it tended to 
 drag the hand into the implement and would severely 
 crush it. A young man named Mason, about 
 
234 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 eighteen years old, who superintended one of these 
 anchors, and was son of the man who refused to 'leave 
 old England,' most incautiously lifted the rope, 
 which had temporarily slipped from its place, with 
 his right hand, and it was instantly dragged into the 
 pulley, and three of the fingers were smashed and 
 partly torn off. As the county infirmary was 
 within a short distance, his hand was bound up, and 
 he walked immediately to the hospital attended by 
 his father. The house surgeon dressed the hand, 
 placing the fingers into place, and the lad was put 
 to bed in great pain, but by the evening he was 
 quite comfortable. The next day he was so much 
 better that he got up and walked in the grounds of 
 the institution. By the end of the week, five days 
 after the accident, he was still better, so that with 
 his left hand he wheeled about, in a bath chair, 
 another patient. The next day he complained to 
 the matron that he had ' a stiff neck,' and had some 
 difficulty in swallowing. She at once saw the 
 danger of these symptoms, and on the doctor 
 examining him, he found lockjaw had set in rapidly, 
 and to the grief and dismay of his parents, and all 
 of us, the next day he died of tetanus. Here was 
 an act of the victim's own imprudence — one to be 
 greatly deplored, as he was a promising young 
 fellow — and the accident was caused by a portion 
 of machinery in the open field, which was im- 
 possible to be fenced in. It would therefore be 
 difficult to decide how the new compensation Act 
 would work under such circumstances. No man 
 
CHEAP BREAD 235 
 
 has a higher appreciation of the value of the agri- 
 cultural labourer than I have. His honest, hearty, 
 co-operation in all matters, and at all times, in the 
 work of the farm always excites my greatest admira- 
 tion. Even in the science of politics he is no block- 
 head. I remember at a political meeting, in that 
 aboriginal village of Lee, in Bucks, held just before 
 the Parliamentary election for the borough and hun- 
 dreds of Aylesbury, that the questions of protection 
 and of wages were mentioned, when an old fellow 
 got up, and with the greatest confidence addressed his 
 brother farm workers. ' Look here,' he said, ' you may 
 take my word for it, that cheap bread isn't every- 
 thing in favour of the poor man ; it's regular work as 
 he wants ; it's never no good for us when bread is 
 under 6d. for the 4 lb. loaf. Now, when I was a 
 young man, forty years ago, I went a thrashing in 
 the barn for 9^. a week, and when I got home on 
 Saturday night my wife would meet me and say, 
 "John, I beat you," and she'd hold up a half sovereign 
 which she had taken for her week's work for straw 
 plaiting, making between us igjr. Well then, my 
 friends, I now get 14^. a week, and all as she can 
 earn by plaiting is, 'cos o' this free trade and China 
 plait, about \s. 6d. or 2s., so we get 15^. bd. now 
 against igs. then.' Here was good common sense, 
 and it made a great impression on me, as I am a 
 thorough free trader and am dead against protection. 
 Yet there are circumstances of such importance 
 acting against the best interests of the agriculturist 
 that I cannot be blind to their injustice. I may 
 
236 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 mention the continental bounties on the cultivation of 
 sugar-beet, which have quite precluded the possibility 
 of growing sugar-beet and manufacturing it into 
 sugar in this country, and prevented a revival of the 
 prosperity of agriculture. I have the greatest con- 
 fidence that this industry can be profitably carried 
 on in England if fair play were accorded to us. I 
 have given the past five years to its promotion, and 
 feel sure that the 14,000,000/. sterling which we pay 
 annually to the Continent for sugar could be saved 
 for our colonies and our own country. I have been 
 busy during the past two years, and have given great 
 attention to the promotion of another great agricul- 
 tural industry, which has no bounty to combat, and 
 which I am certain can, and will be, most profitably 
 carried into effect immediately, viz. the growth of 
 flax and hemp. Some twenty-five years ago I grew 
 some acres of flax most successfully on my farm, 
 with some of my neighbours, but when grown 
 we had no market for it nearer than Belfast, which 
 was five hundred miles distant, so we were obliged 
 to relinquish the cultivation. But now a company 
 is formed called the ' English Fibres Industries, 
 Limited,' which proposes to erect works for treating 
 both fibres, and bringing them into perfection in 
 various parts of the kingdom. This year, 1897, 
 there are 3,000 acres being grown in the Eastern 
 Counties, with the greatest success, and as we pay 
 the foreigner, first and last, nearly 18,000,000/. 
 sterling per annum for these articles, it appears that 
 there is a prospect of the future prosperity of the 
 
FLAX AND HEMP 237 
 
 agriculturists being assured ; as I well know, from 
 my own practical experience, that many, if not all, 
 of these supplies can be grown in this country at a 
 profit of at least 3/. per acre. In the present day, 
 every panacea is recommended for trial to the land- 
 owners and farmers to alleviate the present terrible 
 distress that overspreads our land, and I feel assured 
 that if strong efforts are made, and some assistance 
 for this industry rendered by the Government, by 
 affording cheap capital — which could be most satis- 
 factorily secured — a great future is before us, and 
 revived prosperity for agriculture, which is the 
 greatest of all industries, in every clime and country. 
 I express myself thus strongly on this subject, and 
 though I am happy to write my records of sport, 
 politics, and other matters, I am reminded by my 
 old schooldays, of the First Ode of Anacreon : 
 
 ®«Aa) Aeyeiv ArpfiSa?, 
 OcAo) &i KaS/xoi' d'Setv " 
 'A ySap/JiTos &i )^oijSaL'; 
 
 "E/JWTa IXUVVOV y]\€l, K.T.A. 
 
 Yet my harp, instead of sounding only of love, 
 will sing solely of agriculture. 
 
 Let us all do our best for this ennobling science, 
 and we may then see the exodus of the labourer 
 from the country arrested, and the fearless, industri- 
 ous, and grateful countryman will again rally round 
 the country parson, the country gentleman, and the 
 British farmer ; whilst the villaore tradesman and 
 mechanic will become once more prosperous and 
 happy, and continue to be, as they were in old times, 
 the backbone of Old England. 
 
238 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 
 
 The highly distinguished quahty of our flocks 
 and herds ; the fleetness, tractability, noble bearing 
 and stamina of our thorough-bred horses ; the 
 grandeur, strength and docility of our draught 
 horses ; with the high feeding qualities and delicacy 
 of our porcine denizens of the farmyard, have been 
 shown as superior to all other countries in the show- 
 yards throughout the world. Let it not then be 
 said that our tenant farmers and their contented 
 labourers are lacking in energy or in emulation in 
 the great struggle that is going on throughout the 
 world ; and whilst we have our beloved Queen 
 and our popular Prince of Wales showing them- 
 selves good farmers and lovers of the land, England 
 has nothing to fear, and we shall be proud of our 
 
 country. 
 
 Great, glorious, and free, 
 First flower of the earth 
 And first gem of the sea. 
 
 PRINTED DY 
 
 SPOTTISWOOUE AND CO., NEW-STREET SyUAKE 
 
 LO.NDON 
 
^s/