[From the 'squire's house.] On Sunday last there was a noble entertainment in our great hall, where were present the parson and the farmer: the parson eat like a farmer, and the farmer like a parson: we refer you to the curious in calculations, to decide which eat most. It is reported, that the minister christened a male child last week, but it wants confirmation. [From the justices' meeting, August the 7th.] This day a jackdaw, well known in the parish, was ordered close prisoner to a cage, for crying "Cuckold," to a justice of the quorum; and, the same evening, certain apples, for hissing in a disrespectful manner as they were roasting, were committed to lamb's wool. The same day the said justices caused a pig to be whipped to death, and eat the same, being convicted of squeaking on the 10th of June. [From the church, August the 8th.] Divine service is continued in our parish as usual, though we have seldom the company of any of the neighbouring gentry; by whose manner of living it may be conjectured, that the advices from this place are not credited by them, or else regarded as matters of little consequence. [From the churchyard, August the 8th.] The minister, having observed his only daughter to seem too much affected with the intercourse of his bull and the cows of the parish, has ordered the ceremony for the future to be performed, not in his own court, but in the churchyard: where, at the first solemnity of that kind, the grave-stones of John Fry, Peter How, and Mary d'Urfey, were spurned down. This has already occasioned great debates in the vestry, the latter being the deceased wife of the singing clerk of this place. [Casualties this week.] Several casualties have happened this week, and the bill of mortality is very much increased. There have died of the falling sickness two stumbling horses, as also one of their riders. Smothered (in onions) seven rabbits. Stifled (in a soldier's breeches) two geese. Of a sore throat, several sheep and calves at the butchers. Starved to death, one bastard child, nursed at the parish charge. Still-born, in eggs of turkeys, geese, ducks, and hens, thirtysix. Drowned, nine puppies. Of wind in the bowels, five bottles of small-beer. I have not yet seen the exact list of the parish-clerk; so that, for a more particular account, we refer you to our next. We have nothing material as to the stocks, only that Dick Adams was set in them last Sunday for swearing. |