162 NOTES ON A MINUTE BOOK. 



that the town chest be not charged \\^^ Peter's parish Clocke and 

 Chimbs, but that the prish may pay wt is expended." Yet the 

 clock was kept in order by the town, at least later. On Dec. 27, 

 1650, "J. Eoberts and Matthew Benn have undertaken betwixt 

 them to keepe the Clocke at Peter's Church in good order . . . 

 and that Bennett shall ring eight a Clocke at night and four in the 

 morning." So does Haskett now at eight, giving the day of the 

 month after on the treble ; but in the morning he is two hours 

 later in summer and three in winter than Bennett was. Now this 

 talk of hours puts me in mind to close this long paper. Long 

 indeed, but most imperfect. It began, and it ends, witli a plea for 

 indulgence. The silver lode of Laurium was mined by the 

 Athenians and smelted. But it has paid the moderns to smelt the 

 slag over again. So this book, C. 12, has been worked by me 

 indeed, but not worked out, I painfully feel. This needs an 

 expert, and an expert with unbounded leisure. My ignorance as 

 to various anomalies which more or less dimly show themselves in 

 C. 12, and similar books has been a dreadful difficulty. I can but 

 name the apparent distribution of church collections by Mayor 

 and Company instead of by Minister and Churchwardens as one 

 puzzle, and the outlay on and control of the Shire Hall by the 

 Mayor, &c., as a second, and the questionable status of Dorchester 

 as capital of Dorset as a third, out of several matters on which I 

 am at a loss. Without going beyond the few dingy minute books 

 in the Town Hall strong room there are materials whereof a 

 thorough expert would do for Dorchester at least as much as has 

 been done in " Social Life in a Southern County " for Lyme 

 Regis. Perhaps the coming author may be among this company. 

 Veniat, For even as I have written my dull tale a vision has 

 shone clearly, and more clearly, of a very charming little old 

 borough. The making up of the wall, tlie gates slamming to at 

 candle lighting, the Mayor and ex-Mayor "sitting in seate" 

 solemnly in St. Peter's, the laying in of turf and furze for the 

 lowly, the laying out of sack and claret and fat sheep and sugar 

 loaves for the high and mighty, the exodus of "mostc of the 



