20 



Broughton Gifford. 



fore he came home. He mockt her, calling her snocking . . . 

 and other like reproachful words." Lansdown fair was then and 

 is now held Aug. 10th. "1715. Elizabeth Aust, widow of Arthur 

 Aust. She died suddenly while she talking to her cosen's Hunt's 

 wife and in his house." The years 1723, 4, 5, 7, were deadly 

 from the small pox, which then raged in the parish. 1727. A 

 clinical baptism, followed by death : " Isaac Gay (of Anabaptist 

 parents) about 24 years old baptised in his bed, being supposed 

 near his departure, and dyed 9 days afterwards." 1727. "Mrs. 

 Mary Bilson who came from London and liv'd in Broghton for 

 cure of a distemper in the breast above 1 year and a half, her 

 husband kept a great number of cows at Totna court by London, 

 and was buryd Dec. 16." 1728. "Edmund Lewis, anciently 

 of Broghton, was buried at Semington, where he last lived in 

 a house of his son's, Fe. 21. He pined away in a kind of sor- 

 rowful despair." About 1714 seems to have commenced the 

 Rector's exercise of Church discipline. He then tells you, "Ste- 

 ven Redman dyed Fe. 5, and was bury'd in his garden ;" and in 

 1727, " Mary, widow of Steven Redman, was bury'd in her 

 orchard." From this time (1714) there is hardly a page without 

 mention of some " buried without the office," or " without Christian 

 prayers of the church ;" and at the end of the book he has a list 

 headed, " Burials of the prophane and unbaptised Dissenters not 

 buryd with the office of the dead, and of such as very seldom or 

 never come to the Public Worship of God at Church." Here are 

 pilloried among others : " 1719 John Geerish one that contemned 

 and neglected the Public Worship of God everywhere for six and 

 twenty years, a daily drunkard and blasphemous common swearer." 

 " 1723 Jane Ellis a company keeper with Wm. Peirce (whose wife 

 was living at Bradford), a dissenter and prophane talker." Others 

 are mentioned as "pretended" wives. He now calls them "Ana- 

 baptists," some " dissenters of no sect," and " ill livers." What- 

 ever the offences of these unhappy condemned, it does not appear i 

 that, living or dead, they were brought before any other tribunal I 

 than that set up in the Rector's parlor, with himself for prosecu- 

 tor, judge, and jury. Assuming that substantial justice was done, 



