By W. W. Ravenhill, Esq. 



139 



The law was thus often present to punish criminals, to exercise a 

 municipal control suitable to those times, and to see that justice was 

 done between man and man. It would be difficult to exaggerate 

 the beneficial effect of such gatherings on the peace and well-being 

 of the public at large. Only once was this interfered with, viz., in 

 1655, hy the Rising in the West, of which an account will be found 

 in vol. xiii. of this Magazine. 



Permit me to give you a few more extracts from these records of 

 the Western Circuit. During the summer circuit, 1646, four orders 

 were made by Mr. Justice Rolle for all the counties included in the 

 Western Circuit, strengthening the hands of the magistrates — as to 

 the better regulation of the licensing of alehouses and suppressing 

 those unlicensed, which had come into existence during the civil 

 war. " Such a multiplicity of alehouses wherein were daily abuses 

 and disorders, specially on sabbath dayes." A second, against the 

 profanation of the sabbath, and the last Wednesday in each month, 

 then appointed as a fast-day throughout the kingdom. A third, as 

 to the due observance " of watch and ward in parish and ty thinge ; " 

 and fourth, that no person presented to the grand jury for misde- 

 meanor or offence should be discharged without proper precautions. 



These orders sometimes originated in the presentments of the 

 grand juries, who, to their honour, were assisting the judges in the 

 settlement of the country. 



But there are orders on many subjects. For instance, A.D. 1631, 

 against John Moody, of Upton Lovell, for turning, &c, Mr. 

 Lambert's hedges and ditches. 1632, John Punchen, for baffling 

 the law by lewd and cunning practices, in procuring that coseners 

 Inigo Price, Peter Corinthe, 1 and George Hudson, be set at liberty, 

 before they had satisfied their victims, which John is bound over to 

 do. 1633, men drinking and wasting wine in a carrier's wain, &c. 

 1634, Thomas Smyth, alias Goddard, is allowed to retain his cottage 

 at Herringslade, in the parish of Warminster, and ty thing of Small- 

 brook, which he had erected contrary to the statute 31st Elizabeth, 



1 These names have a smack of the turf ; there were Salisbury races in those 

 days, which were prohibited by Cromwell as meeting-places for malignants. 



