20 NOTES TO THE 



which has lately been removed, are made of Sussex iron. I 

 cannot here resist putting on record the origin of the pattern 

 of the railings which surround the inclosure in Hanover 

 Square. It is this : Sir Francis Chantrey, the sculptor, my 

 godfather, had just finished his statue of Pitt when he came 

 down to visit my father at Oxford. The Dean (then Canon 

 of Christ Church) introduced Sir Francis to the Judge of the 

 Assizes. The judges at Oxford are always received and ac- 

 companied by "javelin men," the attendants, who carry a spear, 

 at the shoulder of which is a fringe of thick worsted tassels. 

 These javelins had been placed in brackets along the wooden 

 pen which keeps off the public. My father, sitting on the bench, 

 saw these javelins they had been consulting together about the 

 pattern of a railing for Hanover Square touching Sir Francis 

 he said, " There are your railings." This, then, was the origin of 

 the "javelin" railings in Hanover Square. 



RED DEER, p. 16. A gentleman well cognizant with the 

 management of deer parks writes me : 



" The great evil of all the forests and chases in England was the 

 total absence of system and the want of an adequate force of 

 keepers and watchers to protect the deer. Certainly very strin- 

 gent laws were enacted, and very heavy penalties were in force, 

 but in the days when ' police ' had not been invented, and 

 when almost free license reigned supreme throughout the land, 

 we cannot wonder at the wholesale deer-stealing and poaching 

 that prevailed, when detection and capture of the culprits was 

 almost impossible, and when the temptation to run what slight 

 risk there might have been was too great for the young and 

 active to resist. 



" The mischief done by herds of deer to crops is very great, 

 but the evil is generally traceable to the cruel neglect of many a 

 proprietor of forest and park, who leaves the herd to fight for 

 themselves in the winter, instead of providing them with ample 

 provender against the time of scarcity." A very able pam- 

 phlet on " Deer, their Habits and Management," by " Under- 

 wood/' 1870, can be obtained at Land and Water Office, 169, 

 Fleet Street. 



Many very curious and interesting things are found in the 

 bed of the Thames, by men who work the mud- and gravel- 

 dredging barges. When at Windsor, I got together a line col- 

 lection of bones, especially of red deer, horse, and roebuck ; the 

 dredger-men called these " water bones : " they take a beautiful 

 polish. The Anglo-Saxons had tame deer, which were great 

 favourites; they taught them to decoy wild ones into nets. 



