ON A PAIR OF ANCIENT RAM S HORNS. 3 



only name to which is affixed the title of Esquire. These 

 interesting old Horns were exhibited at a meeting of the Derby- 

 shire Archaeological Society held at Wirksworth in the autumn 

 of 1884, and the general impression amongst the members 

 was that, as Wirksworth had never been a corporate town, these 

 Horns had probably belonged to a convivial club, which appears 

 to have been one of the institutions of the 17 th and 18 th centuries 

 in many of our small towns, and the chief officer of this club was 

 probably dignified by the title of Mayor : indeed many villages 

 and unimportant places in the last century formed combinations 

 of individuals resident within them for the purpose of looking 

 after, and, if necessary, protecting what were believed to be their 

 legitimate rights, and the chief officer of these combinations was 

 called the Mayor. 



The common at Garratt, a village between Tooting and Wands- 

 worth in Surrey, had often been encroached upon, and a number 

 of the inhabitants combined together to resist these encroach- 

 ments in the year 1780. The chairman of this association was 

 called the Mayor, and as his election took place just at the time 

 of a general election, a law was made that the Mayor should hold 

 office till the next general election, and a new officer be 

 appointed at the time when the constituents chose their member. 

 "The well-known addresses of these so-called Mayors, written 

 by Foote, Garrick, Wilkes, and others, are political squibs and 

 satires." The first Mayor of Garratt was " Sir " John Harper, 

 a retailer of brick dust, and the last, "Sir" Harry Dimsdale, 

 a muffin seller (1796).* 



It is very probable that the Mayors, and, perhaps, the ordinary 

 members who joined these combinations were sworn in " upon 

 the Horns," as a custom of this sort was certainly common in 

 many parts of England in the 17 th and 18 th centuries. 



At Highgate, in the north of London, there were no less than 

 nineteen public-houses at which the swearing in upon the Horns 

 was adopted, probably with a view to increase their income ; and 



* Brewer's Handbook, p. 626. 



