By the Rev, A. C. Smith, M.A. 



349 



burials, 5; marriages. If; and — so far as I can judge from the 

 older registers — this is nearly the same average fifty, one hundred, 

 and one hundred and fifty years ago : hence I gather that the popu- 

 lation of the parish has neither diminished nor increased to any 

 appreciable extent for the last century-and-a-half. The census in 

 1871 declared our population to be two hundred and thirty-eight; in 

 1861, two hundred and thirty; in 1851, two hundred and fifty-one. 



But if our registers contain nothing of interest — and I see not a 

 single entry worth recording — we have one quaint old treasure, in 

 the " Churchwardens'' Account Book/-' whioh dates from A.D. 1752, 

 and tells many strange tales of the way church money was expended 

 in those days. The entry of one shilling paid for killing a fox 

 appears in almost every page from 1753 to 1801, an expenditure of 

 public money which would probably cause some little outcry, if 

 practised at the present day within this part of the Duke of Beaufort's 

 country. 1 Sometimes as many as ten foxes were so killed in the 

 twelvemonths, at an expense to the parish of ten shillings; more 

 often three or four would be the annual number. " Powlcatts/'' or 

 " Paullcats," as they are variously spelt, were still more numerous 

 at the earliest of those dates, though they gradually diminished in 

 number, and disappeared from the book altogether in 1792: they 

 were charged at the rate of fourpence each. Mole-catching again 

 was paid out of the Church rates from 1792 at the fixed sum of 

 £2 . 125. 6d. per annum. Somewhat more legitimate was the frequent 

 entry from the beginning of the book and extending well into this 

 century, C( gave a sailor one shilling/' and sometimes eight sailors 



1 On February 21st, 1872, the Duke of Beaufort killed a fox in the hall of the 

 Eectory. It so happened that, the family and most of the servants being absent 

 at a confirmation in a neighbouring parish, the house was very quiet and the 

 front door shut : and the fox, hard pressed after a long run, and seeking safety 

 in the first available place of refuge, ran in at the back door, and so through a 

 long passage into the front hall ; where it crouched in a vain hope to escape 

 detection. There were however two hounds in pursuit close behind its brush, 

 which followed through the back door and so into the hall : and here they were 

 soon joined by the whole pack, which running in full cry by the window heard 

 the noise inside, and dashing through the panes of glass, soon filled the hall and 

 made short work of their victim. As a trophy of this incident, the brush of the 

 fox now hangs in the Eectory hall. 



