ii6 ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



with boisterous laughter. No disgrace was felt at having 

 friends who were convicts, and the inhabitants of the 

 town looked upon it as a good thing to get their streets 

 cleaned at the expense of the country. 



In front of the County Hall was a broad footway, 

 fenced on the side of the roadway by thick, iron posts, 

 to which were attached strong chains ; from this paved 

 footway the office of the Clerk of the Peace and the 

 Assize Court and Magistrates' Chamber were approached 

 by broad flights of steps. The footway was called the 

 *' Gaol Stones," and for the first quarter of the present 

 century the debtors were permitted to exercise here, and 

 to sit on the steps to the court, the public passing and 

 repassing all day being subject to the ribald jokes, and 

 oftentimes insulting speeches, made to them by these, 

 generally dishonest, inhabitants of the debtors' wards. 

 Beer was a luxury often indulged in in full view of the 

 public ; but this scandal at last was abolished by order of 

 the magistrates. Prisoners were often employed outside 

 the gaol walls, and Mr. Acton Chaplin, who was for many 

 years Clerk of the Peace, was permitted to use the labour 

 of the prisoners for his own private use. At one time he 

 held about forty acres of the farm I have since occupied, 

 the Prebendal Farm, which adjoined my residence (Wil- 

 lowbank), which then belonged to Mr. A. Chaplin, from 

 whose family I purchased it. The ornamental grounds 

 adjoining the house were extensive and beautiful, high 

 banks planted with fine timber, a lake of nearly an 

 acre in extent, supplied with water from an adjacent 

 mill-stream ; and these grounds were all laid out and 

 completed by prisoners from the gaol, and the farm land 



