642 
president’s address. 
for a Gander on the common, and I can find no reference to 
a Stallion Donkey, Pony or Horse, or a Bull, but an unwritten 
law forbids either being turned on to the common. 
Since 1832 no Pigs have been allowed to be turned out. 
nor any Stock which were not kept on the premises of the 
claimants. Nor must any dung or soil be removed, or any 
fences cut. A Pinder was appointed in 1845. he was to 
report all breaches of rules to the Trustees, impound all 
Stock and Geese above regulation numbers, and levy such 
rates as were necessary. 
In 1893, the Trustees applied to the Charity Commissioners 
to draw up a scheme for the management of the common. 
They ordered that the funds in the hands of the Trustees, 
amounting to £203 19s. 3d., should be invested, that all the 
proper expenses incidental to the upkeep of the common 
were to be a first charge on the income of the Trustees, the 
remainder to be spent in various charitable ways suggested 
by them, but left to the discreet selection of the Trustees. 
The Commissioners recognised the right of the Trustees to 
let the shooting, but made no reference to the grazing, or 
fuel, or grass cutting, leaving the beneficiaries thereof as 
under the Inclosure Act of 1810. 
No mention (as far as I have been able to discover) 
is made in any of the rules and regulations concerning 
the ancient custom of gathering Rushes for candle wicks, 
although this was once a great and apparently highly 
remunerative local industry ; and so much in request were 
Ruston candle rushes, that women from other parishes used, 
within the past fifty years, to resort hither to gather them. 
A certain Mrs. Cutting, of Happisburgh, is said to have made 
£10 from her rush harvest, and another woman from Hickling 
was an adept at the art. After the rushes were carefully 
pulled, or drawn separately, by hand, they were heaped, 
preferably, in a dry ditch until they became “ clung,” i.e., 
had lost their natural stiffness. They were then, with a small 
