Cbap. 3.] SOCIAL AND POLITICAL HISTORY. 87 



Some excitement has been caused by a friendly squabble as to the 

 name to be given to the district in which are Fulwood, Broughtou, 

 Longridge, Eibehester, Goosnargh, etc. 



Longridge put iu a claim for the honour, so did Fulwood, and so 

 did Broughton, while Goosnargh and Eibehester seemed to be out of 

 the running entirely. I have heard a good authority, however, suggest 

 that the district should be called after Eibehester, but the grounds of 

 mj' informant's claim are to my mind very fallible. Why the district 

 should be called Broughton — as it was provisionally — it is hard to 

 comprehend. Its claims, when compared with those of the other 

 townships, are simply ridiculous. The claims of Fulwood and Long- 

 ridge are apparently very evenly balanced. The populations in 1881 

 were practically the same, but the character of the two populations is 

 very difftrent. In Longridge the well-to-do cotton weavers form the 

 backbone of the place, while the Fulwood population is largely made 

 up of paupers and soldiers. And further, as Mr. Jukes, the Clerk to 

 the Longridge Local Board, pointed out at the recent confereace, 

 " within a radius of three miles of Longridge they had a population 

 of 9,245 out of 17,050, which is the entire population of the whole 

 electoral district." But there are other considerations to be borne in 

 mind in dealing with the (question of " names." And they are quite 

 as important as any that have been abeady mentioned. In the coui-se 

 of a few years Fulwood wiU undoubtedly be merged in the borough of 

 Preston, to share, as Mr. G. Dixon somewhat viciously observed, in 

 bearing the cost of the "Quixotic Eibble scheme." "While on the 

 other hand it is equally probable that within a short time the adjoining 

 townships of Goosnargh, Eibehester, etc., will be amalgamated with 

 the Local Board district of Longridge. And at the same period wiU 

 be formed a Petty Sessional division for the district I have mentioned.' 

 One thing must be done, however, before Longridge will be- 

 come a popular health resoit. A great change must take place 

 in the management of the Inns and " Hotels." There are 

 thirteen Inns and five Beershops within the Local Board district, 



'Since the above was written the dis- district being in the Hundred of Black- 



trict has received the incomprehensible burn ! 



name of " Amounderness"— part of the 



