THE DRINK HABIT 31 



You will soon be home again and there are plenty of rabbits 

 and fish. Tom wants the rabbits and fish killed, but we will 

 keep them back. John has become a Teetotaller. The new 

 horse goes on very well. 



We are very busy with the forthcoming election. There is to 

 be such a row. Jessica, Tompkins and all the rest send their 

 remembrances, and this is from D. 



Do you want anything ? 



Jessica and Tompkins, I need hardly say, were two 

 of " the pets " already referred to. " Tom " was the 

 village tailor and general factotum. He used from my 

 very earliest days to accompany me shooting and fishing. 

 He made my father his first pair of trousers, and he also 

 made mine. He was seldom sober. His name was 

 Palliser, and I have seen in the records of the Kilvington 

 Church Registry that a Thomas Pallacere inhabited 

 Kilvington in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 



" John " was one John Stillingfleet, who served as a 

 groom-gardener, and was also much addicted to drink, 

 but, being unable to live up to the standard of Tom Palliser, 

 appears to have sworn off altogether at the time when 

 my father wrote. 



As a matter of fact, sober men in the North Riding 

 were very exceptional at that period. Among my earliest 

 recollections is hearing the farmers and others driving home 

 from Thirsk market on Monday evenings. They used 

 to drive or ride full gallop through Kilvington, all drunk, 

 and shouting at the top of their voices. None, so far as 

 I know, ever came to grief. 



My mother's maiden name was Whytehead, and her 

 family has been for very many years well known in 

 Yorkshire, as also, before that, in Hampshire. It is 

 described even in Fuller's Worthies as "an ancient and 

 worshipful family," and I suppose, therefore, I may 

 fairly claim a Bruce Lowe " figure." I have many of my 

 mother's letters, but, beautiful as some of them are, I 

 cannot bring myself to publish a single line of them. 



She was always my champion, even when, in earliest 



