107 



condition ; and the average rate of charge for the transit was 

 about thirty shillings per ton ; so that the whole expense of 

 delivery may be said to be from five to six pounds ten shillings 

 per ton. f 



I have purposely given you aU these details ; they are 

 destinctive of the age in which we live. It is a practical, com- 

 mercial, unpoetical period, when trains will wait for neither the 

 peer nor the peasant ; and when common-place railway trucks 

 carry off romance— in the shape of Mistletoe— at so much per ton ! 

 Had good Sir "Waitee Scoxt lived in these days, it would never 

 have occured to him to send his "merry men" to the "woods" 

 for it — where, by the way, they would never have found it — but 

 the Mistletoe none the less, would have reached him ; and if he 

 had chanced to look over his greengrocer's bill, he would, doubt- 

 less, have found some such items as these : 



To a bunch of Mistletoe fine & fuU of berries £l 

 To pieces of ditto ditto, for decoration 7 6 



There only remains for me the pleasant duty of thanking 

 those gentlemen who have so kindly answered my enquiries and 

 given me so much information. To the Rev. F. T. Haveegal, 

 I am indebted for the opportunity of consulting the books in our 

 valuable Cathedral Library : Thomas Blashill, jun. Esq., has 

 been most useful to me in looking up authorities in the British 

 Museum and in other ways : The E,ev. Thomas Woodhouse has 

 been a greater help to me than he would be wiUing to allow, for 

 an example, see Appendix b. The Eev. Thomas HtrrcHiNsoN, 

 The Rev. W. H. Pukchas, Dr. "Willis, of Monmouth ; Elmes 

 f "Many people would be greatly amazed," says Mr. Haywood, "were 

 they to stand on Worcester bridge for a sliorl time, any Market day a few 

 weeks before Christmas, from about sis to nine o'clock in the morning. 

 They would see vehicles of every description, from the largest waggon, 

 down to the donkey cart and wheel-barrow, loaded as high as can be piled 

 with the "hallowed mirth-inspiring Jlistletoe." All this is eagerly bought up 

 by men called 'Badgers', who paik it in casks or crates, and send it off to 

 decorate the houses of our neighbours, in Manchester, Liveipool, &c. I 

 have made enquiry of the Badgers, and they say the price of Mistletoe is 

 about £4 per ton; and that upwards of 100 tons are annually sent from 

 Worcester." 



