By the Rev. J. Wilkinson. 



27 



the common. So there is of cock-fighting : the pit is said to have 

 been where the Rector's cucumber frame now stands. The moral 

 odour of the place still hangs about it : the only thing he ever 

 missed were 5 cucumbers stolen one Sunday morning. The chief 

 village dissipation takes place at the Whit- sun meeting of the 

 Benefit club. The neighbouring fair at Bradford Leigh used to be 

 much frequented, and was generally accompanied by mischievous 

 midnight revelry. This holiday gave a mnemonic date to " the 

 simple annals" of domestic life. I have heard old people reckon 

 events, " come next Bradford Leigh fair." I have known a skim- 

 mington. A mob, with tongs, gridirons, saucepans, or anything 

 they could get, surrounded the house of one who was said to be an 

 unfaithful husband, and made most unmelodious music. Kattern 

 cakes are carried about for sale on St. Katherine's day, November 

 25th. It seems a pure matter of vulgar merchandise. There are 

 no rhymes, no bowl, no jollity, no maidens making merry together 

 and looking out for good husbands by help of the patroness of 

 spinsters. We do not here realise Goldsmith's pleasing picture, 



" When all the village train from labour free, 

 Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree." 



We have no "merry wakes, May games, and Christmas triumphs," 

 of course no christening customs, but not even a harvest home. 

 We are rather dull. The reason I suppose to be the early and 

 continued prevalence here of a stern Puritan feeling, anxious to 

 disengage itself from all observances, whether innocent or not, 

 which could be traced up, as many of these, to Roman Catholic 

 times. Whatever the necessity, still we may be allowed to regret 

 11 that many precious rites, 



And customs of our rural ancestry, 



Are gone, or stealing from us." 



The general sanitary report ought to be favourable. On the whole 

 we are healthy. The only exception is the common, and this is of 

 man's making. The common is the highest, and might be as healthy 

 j as any part of the parish. But, because it is a common, it is nobody's 

 , business to improve and drain it. In former times, fevers used to be 

 periodical there, even now any disorder is of a far more virulent cha- 

 |j racter there than elsewhere. During my incumbency a scarlet fever 



