Wiltshire Quarter Sessions. 



37 



strooke y e warrat owt of David Button's hand and gave him 3 or 4 blowes and 

 beate him owt of }' e howse, and kept this exam' and y e rest at a baye at y e doore 

 halfe an hower at y e least .... 



" David Button saieth yt upo she win ge M Hungerforde's warrat .... 

 Killinge p'sently said yt M r Hungerford was his enemy and he wowld not 

 obey his warrat, and yt if M r Hungerford were there himself e he showld not 

 serche his howse, nor any other justice whatsoever exceptinge only S r Henry 

 Bainton his master." 



On a like errand another tithingman found wool in the house of 

 a suspected person, who turning" upon him with much that had 

 better have been left unsaid, " wthall smoate ye wooll owt of his 

 hande into ye grownde and jiurted him in ye lippes wth his Jiste, and 

 was so earnest and violent in assaultinge him " that it was all the 

 Tithingman and a carpenter and the suspected person's wife could 

 do " to restrain and repell him fro doinge some mischeife to the said 

 Tithingman/'' 



Two more examples may be cited in, perhaps superfluous,testimony 

 that " when constabulary duty's to be done, a policeman's lot is not 

 a happy one." In the first of these the conduct of the officer would 

 not now-a-days single him out for promotion ; in the second some 

 little excess of zeal seems almost to have courted the indignities with 

 which it was confronted. 



Michaelmas, 1607. Thomas Pierce, Tythingman of " Bremble," 

 sallied forth to arrest an offender, whom he found at the house 

 of a bedridden neighbour. Pierce produced his warrant " sorrowinge 

 wthall yt so old a fellowe and so well reputed should give cause of 

 any such trouble " and with inexcusable simplicity handed it to 

 Matthew Starr, a nephew of the accused, to read. He with in- 

 genious effrontery : — 



" Affirmed y fc y e warrat cocerned not his kinsman for yt he was not named in 

 it, w ch Tho Peirce y e Tithingma cotradictinge, W m Kingsecke Hinge bederidden 

 not far off, and heeringe so loud talkinge in hishouse desired Tho Peirce whome 

 he knewe by his voyce, to come into his chaber, and after they had talked a 

 worde or twoe togither, this examinat returned towarde his prisoner whom he 

 left with Anthony Starr, but missinge him, he imputed his goinge away to y c 

 said Mathew Star's misreadinge and misreportige the warrant, whereto y e said 

 Mathew made answeare viz If I did tell a lye and my uncle did believe me 

 what doe I care." 



