Your faithful friend,
JAMES C. BROWNE, D.C.L., Vicar of Dudley.
June, 1848. A most heartrending and devastating accident happened at Hartshill. A boiler connected with a forge mill suddenly exploded, and eleven men were instantly scalded to death.
Church rates were still levied in this parish, and occasionally we had to witness some very unwise and unpleasant seizures of respectable townsmen’s goods or furniture, who conscientiously refused to pay the obnoxious church rates. The spirited remonstrance made by Mr. Joseph Pitchfork, the talented and genial master of “Baylisses School,” in Tower Street, who was occasionally a victim in this unrighteous cause, will repay perusing.
CHURCH RATES.
“GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST, PEACE ON EARTH, AND GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN.”
“Do this in remembrance of me.”
Luke 22. v. 19.
Fellow Townsmen,
My household goods have been pounced upon a third time, to furnish the Churchmen of the ward, in which I have the misfortune to dwell, with means to worship their God more cheaply; with wine to drink in remembrance of their Saviour at the communion table, at less expense to their niggardly pockets; to pay for the washing and mangling of their parson’s surplice, and for removing the dust and dirt which will accumulate in “temples made with unclean hands.”