The Society's Dinner. 



131 



Tlie Rev. A. C. Smith then read a paper on " Certain Wiltshire 

 Traditions, Charms and Superstitions/' which will also appear in the 

 Magazine. 



The Rev. E. C. Barnwell, in proposing a vote of thanks to Mr. 

 Smith for his paper, remarked that some of the superstitions which had 

 been mentioned were not confined to the county of Wilts, but were 

 found all over the kingdom : he also desired to add to the list of super- 

 stitions in Wiltshire the one that if we had thunder and lightning 

 in winter, the great man of the parish would be sure to die soon after ! 



Sm John Awdey was happy to say that that was not an infallible 

 omen. He knew a gentleman, the entire owner of a parish, who 

 was awakened in the middle of a snowy night by a heavy clap ; but 

 that was twenty years ago, and he was happy to say that that 

 gentleman was living still. 



The meeting then adjourned and the company separated, some to 

 inspect the church, others proceeding to the quarries, which present 

 many features of geological interest. 



THE DINNER. 



At half-past five the Members of the Society and their friends 

 dined at the Goddard Arms Hotel, where they were worthily presided 

 over by A. L. Goddard, Esq. 



After the usual loyal toasts the Rev. H. G. Bailey, Vicar of 

 Swindon, in responding for the Bishop and Clergy of the Diocese, 

 remarked that as a body, the clergy desired to cherish most friendly 

 feelings with Societies of this kind ; in fact he might say that there 

 was perhaps scarcely a clergyman who was not somewhat of an 

 antiquarian. With regard to their own neighbourhood, he was 

 afraid that they did not abound in archseological interest. Swindon 

 was a thing of yesterday, it had no past. He remembered that 

 thirteen years ago, when Canon Jackson endeavoured to delineate 

 the history of the place, he said it was a history of how the pigs 

 from Highworth used to come there and feed on the hill of Swindon, 

 which was then called SwineVdown, or Swindon. Swindon was a 

 busy, bustling place, having a great deal more to do with the things 

 of the present than of the past. But as he had heard that the 



