10 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. [l817. 



small sisters into trouble. At the tender age of 

 five the child was placed as a boarder at a school 

 about a mile distant. This early launching into life 

 will be told in his own words, in a few pages of an 

 autobiography which nearly eighty years later Joseph 

 Prestwich had been urged to write, and which had 

 only just been begun in those last months when he 

 was attacked by fatal illness : 



I must have been a mischievous boy. At five years of age 

 I was sent to school. The last misdemeanour which led to it 

 was this. Our house at Lavender Hill stood in a large garden 

 and orchard in which was a fish-pond. One fine summer's day 

 the nurse was, I am told, sent to fetch us children and put us to 

 bed. Preferring an outdoor life, I persuaded my little sister, 

 who was eighteen months younger than myself, to hide in the 

 pond, where I felt sure they would never seek us. Accordingly 

 we marched in until the water was up to our necks, and there 

 we might have remained, heedless of the cries of the nurse, until 

 what I judged would be a fitter time for bed, had not my sister 

 betrayed us by an uncontrollable fit of laughter. 



The school to which I was sent at Wandsworth was about a 

 mile distant from our home, and was kept by a Madame Saqui, 

 I presume a French emigrant. She suffered from dropsy, and 

 adopted a mode of exercise which I have never since seen. At 

 the end of the schoolroom was a tall seat formed by thick 

 cushions with springs, and having arms to hold on by on either 

 side. On this she bobbed up and down, while she could see 

 all that was going on in the schoolroom. It was very comical, 

 but to laugh we dared not. I do not remember what I learned 

 I imagine it was but little. I remember better our amuse- 

 ments. At that time (1817) fairs were held in all towns and 

 villages around London, which had its own great central fair 

 in Smithfield. To the Wandsworth fair we never failed to be 

 led, and were then each presented with a bun. We had also 

 our daily walks. On one of those we passed by the lodge of 

 our house, and the gate being open, and having an innate 

 dislike to school, I ran off down the avenue until stopped by 



