74 TRANSACTIONS OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
to kiss un and veiled vore with un upon a vuzzy vaggot. Jane, 
her got into a passion and laid to un with the broomstick, while 
he kep voaching upon the babby. When I coined away her 'd 
a thrashed un sober; and they'd a got the chield, naked and 
screeching, on the dresser a picking out the prickles." 
Hicks knew a man who was a morose, dull, heavy, religious 
fanatic; and this worthy had married a widow with a lively, 
laughing, singing daughter, who was always singing songs and 
making a noise in the house. The man reproved the girl for 
her gaiety in this vineyard of mortality, and said to her, " Suppose 
you was took suddent, and called to your last account with the 
' Soldier's Tear ' in your mouth ! " 
Hicks used to meet Thackeray at the Garrick Club. One evening, 
a member of the club said, in Thackeray's presence, he should 
like his friend ill (leaving out the H) to be a member of the 
club, when »Thackeray said, " It makes us rather bear those ills we 
have, than fly to others that we know not of." 
Hicks was present once at an interview between a rural Dean 
and a sexton at a country church. There were sheep in the 
churchyard, and the Eural Dean said he did not like to see them 
there. The sexton replied, " They won't bide there long, us be 
going to till un to taties next week." The Eural Dean also found 
fault because there was no table of affinity to be seen in the 
church. The sexton said, a A table of affim'ety is no good to us, 
there's nobody in our parish a going to marry his grammer, nor 
no such nonsense." 
Hicks's great jury story was the story of all others which alone 
might have made a reputation. It is impossible to give it in 
writing as it was told ; but as Hicks can no longer tell it, this 
example of trial by jury should be placed on record. The story 
has a deep moral in it ; for it is a most graphic account of how 
juries used to do rough justice, when the laws and the judges 
were very severe, and hanging was a commonplace event. The 
jury might well say that they hung; for a verdict of guilty was 
a sure hanging matter, any particular circumstances notwithstand- 
ing. Mr. Baring Gould, in his preface to John Herring, tells a 
very good story of jury justice in Devonshire, and Hicks's story 
is a Cornish one of a more elaborate nature. Whether jury 
