JACOB'S POST 225 



beautiful regions. They show us, in survival, what 

 the now hackneyed main roads were like three 

 generations ago. 



In every circumstance Ditchling Common recalls 

 the " Crackskull Commons " of the eighteenth-century 

 comedies, for it has a little horror of its own in the 

 shape of an authentic fragment of a gibbet. This is 

 the silent reminder of a crime committed near at hand, 

 at the " Royal Oak " inn, Wivelsfield, in 1734. In 

 that year Jacob Harris, a Jew pedlar, came to the inn 

 and, stabling his horse, attacked Miles, the landlord, 

 while he was grooming the animal down, and cut his 

 throat. The servant-maid, hearing a disturbance in 

 the stable, and coming downstairs to see the cause of 

 it, was murdered in the same way, and then the Jew 

 calmly walked upstairs and slaughtered the landlord's 

 wife, who was lying ill in bed. None of these 

 unfortunate people died at once. The two women 

 expired the same night, but Miles lived long enough 

 to identify the assassin, who was hanged at Horsham, 

 his body being hung in chains from this gibbet, ever 

 since known as Jacob's Post. 



Pieces of wood from this gallows-tree were long 

 and highly esteemed by country-folk as charms, and 

 were often carried about with them as preventatives 

 of all manner of accidents and diseases ; indeed, its 

 present meagre proportions are due to this practice 

 and belief. 



The post is fenced with a wooden rail, and is sur- 

 mounted by the quaint iron effigy of a rooster, pierced 

 with the date, 1734, in old-fashioned figures. 



It is a lonely spot, with but one cottage near at 

 hand : the common undulating away for miles until 

 it reaches close to the grey barrier of the noble South 

 Downs, rising magnificently in the distance. 



