From Bury St. Edmunds is the following inscription which tells a sad story of the low value placed on human life at the close of the eighteenth century:—
Reader,
Pause at this humble stone it records
The fall of unguarded youth by the allurements of
vice and treacherous snares of seduction.
Sarah Lloyd
On the 23rd April, 1800, in the 22nd year of her age,
Suffered a just and ignominious death.
For admitting her abandoned seducer in the
dwelling-house of her mistress, on the 3rd of
October, 1799, and becoming the instrument in
his hands of the crime of robbery and
housebreaking.
These were her last words:
“May my example be a warning to thousands.”
A lover at York inscribed the following lines to his sweetheart, who was accidentally drowned, December 24th, 1796:—
| Nigh to the river Ouse, in York’s fair city, Unto this pretty maid death shew’d no pity; As soon as she’d her pail with water fill’d Came sudden death, and life like water spill’d. |
In Holy Trinity Church, Hull, is an elegant marble monument by Earle, with figures of a mother and two children. The inscription tells a painful story, and is as follows:—
Our John William,
In the sixteenth year of his age, on the night of January 19th, 1858, was swept by the fury of a storm, from the pierhead, into the sea. We never found him—he was not, for God took him; the waves bore him to the hollow of the Father’s hand. With hope and joy we cherished our last surviving flower, but the wind passed over it, and it was gone.
An infant brother had gone before, October 15th, 1841. In heaven their angel does always behold the face of our Father.
To the memory of these
We, their parents, John and Louisa Gray erect this monument of human sorrow and Christian hope. “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight!”