XIV
Changes—Old customs—Country houses—A dispirited Conservative—Wigs—The last Bishops to wear them—Some witty replies—Nightcaps—Dr. Burney and Nelson—Posy rings—Mutton-fat candles in 1835—Belvoir Castle—Old-world country life—Poachers—The last of the smugglers—A terrible crime—Hanging in chains—Pressing to death—Books bound in the skin of criminals—Sussex roads—Old ironwork—Cowdray—The monk’s curse—Otway’s birthplace—Trotton—Charles James Fox—Midhurst and its tokens—Oratory in the country.
Within the last hundred years the changes wrought by steam and electricity have completely transformed the world, whilst making it, no doubt, a very much more comfortable planet to live in than it ever was before. Nevertheless, much that was picturesque and curious has disappeared; few old customs survive, though in certain places they are still (perhaps somewhat artificially) preserved. The practice of beating the bounds, for instance, is, I believe, still occasionally, in a very modified form, carried out in certain towns; but the serious necessity for it having passed away, it is more of a holiday pastime than anything else.
As late as the ’fifties the old custom of wassailing the orchards was still to some extent preserved in Sussex, where it was known as “apple-howling.” A troop of boys used to go round to the different orchards, and, surrounding the apple trees, repeat some quaint rhymes and shout in chorus, the leader of the band meanwhile producing some strange sounds from a cow’s horn. Part of the ceremony consisted in rapping the apple trees with sticks. At the present day this apple-tree superstition, to which Herrick makes allusion in his Hesperides, appears to be extinct.
Wassailing at Christmas time was, of course, a totally different thing altogether, of which possibly some vestige has survived to the present day, though in a very modified form. In the days, not so very long ago, when Sussex labourers could not read, they were absolutely dependent upon tradition for their songs, which, in many cases, were exceedingly quaint. Two favourite ones were the “Blind Beggar’s Daughter of Bethnal Green” and the well-known “Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington.” Others were “Lord Bateman was a Noble Lord” and “A Sweet Country Life.” These old songs used to be sung by parties of carol singers who went from house to house, well assured of receiving a warm and hearty welcome.
Formerly, of course, people who lived in the country were much more dependent upon the shops in the local village than is now the case, when everything can be got down from London with the greatest ease. Most country houses of any size had a large brew-house attached to them, where home-made beer was brewed for the labourers and servants; this was at all events exceedingly wholesome, being quite free from all adulteration. Country households were also more or less self-dependent in other ways, and many articles of domestic use were made at home, which in these days are purchased from the huge emporiums with which London abounds. Those were the days of feather-beds, and the feathers of chickens and of game-birds were not thrown away as to-day, but carefully preserved and picked in order that they might be utilised as stuffing for this somewhat hot and uncomfortable sort of couch.
A DISPIRITED TORY
At my old home in Norfolk two women were kept constantly employed at this work. I can still see in my mind’s eye old Phœbe Barwick, as she was called, picking away together with another aged character—they never seemed to stop from morning to night, a room being specially set aside for their use. Phœbe’s companion has ever lived in my recollection by reason of the fact that when she heard the news of my brother’s election, as member for East Norfolk, in 1835, she rushed downstairs, seized a huge dinner-bell, and rang a pæan of exultant triumph on the lawn in front of the house. My brother himself was imbued with but little political fervour even at that time, and in his later years his efforts on behalf of the Conservative party were limited to sending on one occasion a cartload of hares into his market town as presents for the Tory electors. The Liberals, however, having made the driver drunk, proceeded to distribute the hares amongst their own supporters, a proceeding which my brother ever afterwards declared had thoroughly disgusted him with all political propaganda.
In my early childhood there were still men living who had not abandoned the eighteenth-century fashion of wearing a wig. This custom, indeed, did not entirely die out with the coming in of the nineteenth century, some old-fashioned people continuing to wear these head-coverings as late as the early ’thirties. The last man to wear a pigtail is said to have been one of the Cambridge dons, who retained it as late as the year 1835. The higher clergy did not abandon their wigs till a somewhat later date. As recently as 1848 Bishop Monk wore a wig whilst officiating at an ordination at St. Margaret’s, Westminster. Archbishop Sumner, however, is said to have been the very last ecclesiastic to discard this head-covering, which Bishops Bagot and Blomfield had been the first to lay aside. Bishop Blomfield was a divine who was noted for his wit, and his sayings were sometimes very amusing. He was once engaged in a controversy with a learned man as to the mental superiority of the East over the West, and after much argument his opponent as a parting shot said, “Well, at any rate the wise men came from the East—you can’t dispute that.” “Surely,” retorted the Bishop, “that was the wisest thing they could do.”
On another occasion, at a party where a lady in an extremely decolleté gown excited a good deal of attention, some one remarked to him: “Her appearance is really quite scandalous. Did you ever see anything like it?” “Never,” replied the Bishop; “at least, not since I was weaned.”