A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



Conversation, calling one another by their first Name. And the lower sort rude, much given 

 to mean Diversions, such as Bullbaiting, 288 which was very frequent, and for which many Bull 

 Dogs were kept in the Town to the great Torture and Misery of those poor animals. Wres- 

 tling, Cudgeling, Footballing in the Streets day after day in frosty weather, to the advantage 

 of the Glazier. Cockfighting, Dogfighting, Badger Baiting, &c. 



And on Shrove Tuesday the most unmanly and cruel Exercise of Cock scailing was in 

 vogue everywhere, even in the high Church lighten, and many other places in the City and 

 in the country. Scarsely a Churchyard was to be found but a number of those poor innocent 

 Birds were thus Barberously treated. Tieing them by the Leg with a String about 4 or 5 

 feet long fastened to the Ground, and when he is made to stand fair a Great Ignorant Mercy- 

 less fellow, at a distance agreed upon, and at two pence three throws, flings a scail at him 

 till he is quite dead. . . And wonderful it was that men of Character and Circumstance 

 should come to this fine sight, and readily give their children a Cock for this purpose.* 83 



Dr. John Burton in 1751 formed a very poor opinion of the Sussex 

 countrymen and expressed himself most contemptuously * M 



The men there, as not being accustomed to quit their homes for the sake of traffic or 

 any other purpose, generally live by themselves, and being born on the soil continue un- 

 refined. . . . Their manners are not the most gentlemanlike or agreeable, but neither are 

 they quite barbarous. In their persons not corpulent, but rather spare or thin-shanked ; in 

 their diet generally frugal ; and in their cookery being neither dainty nor expensive, they 

 care most for pork, which indeed they prepare skilfully by steeping in brine. After being 

 thus pickled . . . they slice it off when cured, as the family may want. They also cook a 

 certain lump of barley meal, looking much like mud and hardened like iron, offering it at 

 meals instead of bread. 



After some unflattering comment upon their speech and their singing in 

 church, he proceeds in more kindly vein 



You would probably admire the women if you saw them, as modest in countenance and 

 fond of elegance in their dress, but at the same time fond of labour and experienced in 

 household matters ; both by nature and education better bred and more intellectual generally 

 than the men. 



Later he returns to the attack upon the men : SS6 



The farmers of the better sort are considered here as squires. These men however 

 boast of honourable lineage, and like oaks among shrubs, look down upon the rural vulgar. 

 You would be surprised at the uncouth dignity of these men and their palpably ludicrous 

 pride ; nor will you be less surprised at the humility of their boon-companions and the 

 triumphs of their domineering spirit among the plaudits of the pothouse or kitchen ; the 

 awkward prodigality and sordid luxury of their feasts ; the inelegant roughness and dull 

 hilarity of their conversation ; their intercourse with servants and animals so assiduous, with 

 clergymen or gentlemen so rare ; being illiterate they shun the lettered, being sots the sober. 

 Their whole attention is given to get their cattle and everything else fat, their own intellect 

 not excepted. 



Spershott gives some further interesting particulars of the home life of 

 the middle classes early in the eighteenth century.* 88 



In those days the household furniture of the wooden sort was, with old housekeepers, 

 almost all of English oak, viz. long tables, round and triangular, &c., chest of drawers, side 

 cupboards with large doors at bottom and on the top short pillars with a kind of piazer and 

 small dores within, much carved ; arm chairs with wood bottoms and backs, joint stools, 

 cloaths chest, bedsteds with 4 posts, fram'd heads and testers, all of which were much carved 

 with flowers, scroles, images &c. Likewise the wainscoting was all of English oak fram'd 

 with a flat moulding, the panels all cleft from the tree. But with younger people it was 



*" John Burgess of Ditchling, conscientious Baptist though he was, had no hesitation in providing a dog 

 for a bull bait in 1788 ; Suss. Arch. Coll. xl, 139. 



183 And yet the rector of Horsted Keynes during the Commonwealth apparently sold cocks to his 

 parishioners for this purpose ; Suss. Arch. Coll. i, 68. 



184 Ibid, viii, 256. WJ Ibid. 260. ** Ibid, xxix, 230. 



202 



