49 



Come, neighbours, no longer be patient and quiet, 



Come, let us go kick up a bit of a riot, 



I'm hungry, my lads, but I've little to eat, 



So we'll pull down the mills and seize all the meat ; 



I'll give you good sport, bojs, as ever you saw, 



So a fig for the justice, a fig for the law. 



Derry down, &.c. 



Jack, however, demonstrates, or suggests, that to destroy the 

 mills will not cheapen flour, or to abuse the butchers will not 

 produce more meat, &c. 



Quoth Tom, thou art right, if I rise I'm a Turk, 



So he threw down his pitchfork and went to his work. 



But the problem as to the corn, so diflicult for so many centuries, 

 was solved in our own time, when some thirty years ago it was 

 determined that all interference with the trade was wrong, and, 

 to use the words of Edward 6th in 1550, as nearly as possible 

 three centuries before, the prices were left, to be none other than 

 the buyers and sellers could agree upon. Whilst this determina- 

 tion has enabled the manufacturers to accumulate fortunes from 

 cheap labour, the consequence of cheap food, its eff'ect upon the 

 land and its labour is only now beginning to be felt. 



I 



Some Account of the Skirmish at Claverton during the Civil Wars, 

 July, 1643. By H. D. Skrine. 



(Read November 2lst, 1878.J 



At the request of our Secretary I have undertaken to give the 

 Field Club some account of an incident of the Civil Wars between 

 Charles I. and the Parliament, which occurred in this neighbour- 

 hood and on part of the estate I now own. I have called it 

 " The Skii-mish of Claverton," though in my own opinion it was 

 of much more importance than readers of the history of those 

 times may imagine. 



