* * * * *
_A Village Hampden_.--In the churchyard of one of the parishes of Walsall,
Staffordshire, is the following epitaph on a person named Samuel Wilks,
who appears, like other persons of his name, to have been a great stickler
for the rights of the people:--"Reader, if thou art an inhabitant of the
Foreign of Walsall, know that the dust beneath thy feet was imprisoned in
thy cause, because he refused to incorporate the poor-rates of the Foreign
of Walsall and those of the Borough of Walsall. His resistance was
successful. Reader, the benefit is thine."
* * * * *
_Difference between a Town and a Village_.--The other night it was warmly
contested in the Reform debate in the House of Commons, whether Bilston
and Sedgeley, in Staffordshire, were towns or villages. Mr. Croker spoke
of the "village of Bilston," and the "rural district of Sedgeley," but Sir
John Wrottesley maintained that the right hon. gentleman would find
nothing in Bilston that would give him any idea of sweet Auburn. "He would
find a large market-town in the parish of Wolverhampton, filled not with
trees and waving foliage, but with long chimneys and smoking steam-engines.
The time was also beyond his memory when Sedgeley was a rural district.
The right hon. gentleman would find there no mossy fountains, no bubbling
brooks; the only thing at all like them which he could find there would be
the torrents of boiling water which the steam-engines perpetually
discharged."
* * * * *
_Dutch Disgust_.--You might seek through all London to find such a piece
of furniture as a spitting-box. A Dutchman who was very uncomfortable for
the want of one, declared, with great indignation, that an Englishman's
only spitting-box was his stomach.
* * * * *
_Awkward Honour_.--A medical gentleman has written a letter to Sir Henry
Halford on Cholera, in which he takes to himself the credit of being "the
first to discover the disease, and _communicate it to the public_." The
public is much obliged to him.--_Globe_.
* * * * *
_Newspapers_.--We wish Lieutenant Drummond would calculate the miles of
newspaper columns which every club-haunter daily swallows, and the price
he pays for the same to the proprietaries and the revenue.--_Examiner_.
* * * * *
_Scandal_.--The tell-tale trumpery and eaves-dropping with which the "Tour
of a German Prince" is trickseyed out, reminds us of an observation by
Lady Morgan: "Admit these fellows into your house, and the only return
they will make you is to put you in their book."
* * * * *
_Yorkshire Fun_.--The assizes and the theatre always open together at York,
and it is common to hear the Tykes say, "Eh, lad, ther'l be fun next week;
t'pla'ctors is cuming, and t'men's to be hung all at t'syame time."--
_Atlas_.
* * * * *
_Ancient Drunkenness in London_.--Andrews in his _History of Great
Britain_, says, "In the 16th century drinking had its votaries in
abundance. Much time was spent by the citizens of London at their numerous
taverns." In the country, if a bitter writer of the time, (Stub's
_Anatomie of Abuse_,) may find credit, every public-house was crowded from
morn till night with determined drunkards. Camden, who also allows the
increase of drunkenness among the English, imputes it to their familiarity
with the Flemings in the Low Country wars.
* * * * *
The taverns of London were many and much frequented. An old bard has
favoured us with a list of them in _Newes from Bartholomew Fayre_, a black
letter poem, the title page of which is torn off, viz.
"There hath been great sale and utterance of wine,
Besides beere, and ale, and ipocras fine,
In every country, region, and nation,
But chiefly in Billingsgate, at the Salutation;
And the Bore's Head, near London Stone,
The Swan at Dowgate, a taverne well known;
The Mitre in Cheape; and then the Bull Head,
And many like places that make noses red;
Th' Bore's Head in Old Fish Street, Three Crowns in the Vintry,
And now, of late, St. Martin's in the Sentree;
The Windmill in Lothbury; the Ship at th' Exchange,
King's Head in New Fish Street, where roysters do range;
The Mermaid in Cornhill, Red Lion in the Strand,
Three Tuns, Newgate Market; Old Fish Street, at the Swan."
The first drinking song that appeared in the English tongue is connected
with _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, and was published in 1551.