WILLIAM ROBERT HICKS, OF BODMIN. 
G7 
to take care of the pigs, and do other useful work ; and made so 
much of him and his sayings that he became a well-known 
personage in the county. Anyone attempting to chaff Daniel, 
including Hicks himself, was pretty sure to get the worst of it, 
especially as he was by no means particular as to what he said. 
It was a risk to say anything to him in hopes of getting an 
amusing reply. A gentleman, on a visit to the asylum, once said 
to Daniel, "I hear, Daniel, you are Hicks's fool." "Ah," said 
he, "I zee you do your awn business in that line." One or two 
of Hicks's stories, and of Daniel's sayings, found their way into 
Punch. Daniel now and then was allowed to go out of the 
asylum, and Hicks occasionally had to find him to fetch him 
back. He once found him at an auction, sitting at a table with 
farmers and others, drinking gin and water gratis. He rose up 
when Hicks appeared, not wishing to be recognized as a lunatic 
there, and said, "I tell 'ee what I've obsarved, Mr. Hicks. They 
that scat" (Cornish for broke, as a bankrupt) "last be giving most 
money." Bather a blow to the buyers present. He was once 
asked, "Where does this path go, my man?" He answered, 
"I don't knaw. I've a zeed un bide here the last forty year." 
This was told in Punch in Hicks's time in a different way. 
Daniel was sitting on the high asylum wall when the company, 
horses, and trappings of a circus passed by. He said to the 
leader, "They there sparky" (speckled) "horses don't pay no 
turnpikes here." The man stopped and asked what he meant, 
when he repeated what he had said. There was a turnpike at the 
bottom of the hill, which Daniel could see from the wall, and he 
greatly enjoyed the dispute and row that ensued on the man 
refusing to pay the toll. After a while the man came galloping 
back to know the truth about those horses paying no turnpikes. 
"Because you must pay it for 'em, to be sure," said Daniel. 
It may then have dawned upon the circus man that he was 
speaking to a madman on the wall of an asylum. Daniel used to 
affect to despise Hicks, no doubt because Hicks had to keep him 
under certain control. He said to me one day, " What 's the use 
of he here 1 ?" pointing to Hicks. "He's got nothing to do, and 
he 's great expense to the county. I could do all he does." 
Another hero of Hicks's was a poor fellow who had gone mad 
on etymology ; I will call him Burke. There are many persons 
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