'twas all over, his puff was gone, and his friend the Nailer cried out bellowes to mend. 6 Its a spike to a sparrowbill.' Dick, seeing his advantage, fought home, sent in a finisher that proved a closer to the Rough one, for his eye struck fire so vividly that a wag begged permission to light his cigar from the effect. All was now up. Joe weighed anchor, wished all rigging, and the lawyer to-boot, in a hotter place, and in answer to numerous inquiries, he replied 'I'll ha' no more. We wish for the honour of the town they were better men ; they ought to be so considering their condition."

"N.B. The profits arising from the sale of these are intended for the purchase of a pair of Asses' Ears, to be carried in the procession of all our future Mayors.' -Vide Gornal Journal.

Future Mayors looked in vain for the asses' ears, but alas for broken promises the ears never turned up; and as the author of the above recital doubtless was the owner of a pair of ears, it was at last charitably supposed that the ears were not forthcoming without the ass; and an exhibition of the ass would expose the author of this "squib" to what a donkey often gets "a good thrashing." Rough Joe and nimble Dick having no remedy, shook hands, and became better friends than

ever.

June 24, 1826. "Five Guineas Reward.-Whereas late on the evening of the 19th some person or persons did wantonly break and pull down the lamp irons in front of the Independent Chapel, King Street. A certain young man of the name of F- -s, and two of his foolish associates, were seen committing various depredations on that evening, compared with such persons colliers and miners are complete gentle

men.

The constant practices of horse-play then so much in vogue with the young gentlemen of the period arose in a great measure from the very lax administration of public duty by the "Night Watches," for the "Jarvy" of that period preferred a quiet snooze in his watch box to the solemn, lonely realities of a midnight perambulation of our then unlighted streets, lanes, and alleys; better days have dawned upon us, making our worthy citizens proof against such senseless follies.

Died, August 9th, 1826 (aged 60 years), Mr. Edward Guest, of New Street, Nail Master. This gentleman was a very zealous Churchman in his time, and it was mainly, through the Rev. Dr. Brookes, Vicar of Dudley, and himself, that the old Parish Church (of St. Thomas) was pulled down and the present edifice erected on its site. Mr. Edward Guest was Churchwarden from 1815 to 1821, during the erection, and he had many discordant feelings to assuage, and regrets to palliate, arising from desecrations of the dead and disturbances in the old Church and Church yard. A mysterious disappearance of stone slabs and gravestones occurred at this time, and it has often been rumoured since, "those good old times," that a certain court yard at Dixon's Green, is laid with grave slabs, "spirited away" from the Parish Church yard, and " Here lieth the remains &c., on slabs is to be seen misrepresenting the supposed dust of departed souls, and doing duty in a private court yard as a footpath. Where, "Sacred to the Memory of Mary Jane- is a myth and a snare, for the slabs cover nothing but earthworms and mother earth. Who was the sacrilegeous sinner?

August 14th, 1828. We find that a Ratepayer issued a placard, giving a copy of the Acts of 37, Geo. III. and 5, Geo. IV., in reference to unjust Scales and Weights," and says, "A demand has been made upon the Overseers of this Parish for £193 5s. for Scales and Weights, Interests, &c. In order that you may form a legal opinion upon this subject, and be the better prepared to discuss its merits at the examination of the Overseers' Accounts, the annexed extracts, from the two Acts of Parliament, are submitted for your consideration by a Ratepayer." The gist of the Ratepayer's anxiety appeared to be, that it was wrong to charge the Ratepayers (through the medium of the Overseers) with the expenses of searching out evil doers (employers of short weights and measures), for the Acts enforce not only fines to the offenders, but that their weights and measures "shall be seized and broken up, and rendered useless," and the materials thereof sold; and the money arising from such sale, with the fines, shall be paid to the County Treasurer. The fact, that £193 5s. having been expended in Dudley for that year would lead us to the conclusion that rather an extensive raid had been then made upon this class of public cheats, and the money was well expended if the evil was stopped, and the poorer classes afterwards got their legal weight and measure.

THE NEW CONNEXION METHODIST CHAPEL,

WOLVERHAMPTON STREET.

1829. This commodious Chapel was built and opened in 1829. The cost of the structure and land was £4100, and in 1866 the Chapel was considerably enlarged and beautified at an additional cost of £2094. Previous to the erection of this long-needed edifice, this section of the Wesleyan Congregation worshipped in a small Chapel in Chapel Street. This zealous body (of New Connexion Wesleyans) has largely increased of late years. They have also an excellent School in Rose Hill in connection with their tenets.

On

Died Nov. 24th, 1829, Mr. Squire Knight, Chemist and Druggist, of this town, (Aged 87 years.) This was a remarkable self-made man. Born of poor parents at Coseley in 1742, he succeeded in educating himself to an eminent degree, and in early life he was a Medical Botanist, collecting medicinal herbs himself and selling them in the Market Place on Saturdays. He eventually opened a Druggist's shop in Queen Street, where he passed a long and eventful life. Mr. Knight belonged to the Wesleyan Methodists, and became an energetic local preacher. the occasion of the Rev. Jno. Wesley, M. A., his brother Charles Wesley, and a Dr. Patterson's visits in their itinerancy and preachings in the Black Country to the Collier population, they were joyfully entertained by Mr. Squire Knight. Mr. Knight was not only a diligent student of medicines, but he was also an amateur Astronomer, and left behind him at his death some very carefully prepared observations on the starry regions. Mr. Knight was both a successful and a benevolent old townsman, and much esteemed for his uprightness and integrity, and was followed to the grave by an immense concourse of people.

ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH, NETHERTON.

1830. July 16th. This new Church was consecrated and opened by the Lord Bishop Folliott this day. It was built at the cost of the

Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The first Incumbent was the Rev. Arthur Miller, M.A. The body of this spacious Church was built to accommodate 1500 people, and the galleries contain 1000 free sittings. The foundation of this Church was laid by Dr. Booker, the Vicar of Dudley, on November 30th, 1827. On the awful visitation of the Asiatic cholera in England, (in 1831 and 1832) Dudley did not escape this dreadful affliction, which raged for eighteen months with awful violence and fatality in this parish. By the order of the authorities the cholera corpses dying in the parish were all buried in the north east side of St. Andrew's Burial Ground, Netherton.

From this time to the period of the agitation on the great Reform · Bill of (1832) we find no events worthy of record. The burning question of Catholic Emancipation received at the time its petitions to Parliament for and against the measure, in accordance with the expanded or contracted views of the petitioners; but the Vicar of Dudley (the Rev. Dr. Booker) failed not in his episcopalian views occasionally to denounce the contemplated innovation upon our glorious constitution, and to predict the evils that must follow the introduction of Roman Catholics into Parliament. The Doctor was an eloquent preacher and a noble, attractive figure in the pulpit, with a fine voice; during his many years' ministrations amongst us, he upheld the true dignity of the Church, and endeavoured zealously to promote the glory of God and the salvation of the souls committed to his charge. A fine portrait of the Doctor is to be seen in the drawing room at the Hotel, Dudley.

REFORM AGITATION.

During this period the agitation for Reform was monthly assuming larger proportions, and the mighty voice of the then unrepresented masses was knocking at the doors of the Houses of Parliaments with miles of petitions from all parts of the country, for "a Reform in the Representation of the People. Dudley joined its neighbours at Birmingham and Wolverhampton in the cry for Reform (neither of which important centres of industry had any share then in parliamentary representation, save through their county members.) The serious aspect of passing events and political agitation, which was evoking most persistent demands for "Reform," stimulated the great and eloquent leaders of that movement to introduce a "Reform Bill" into the House of Commons by Lord John Russell, on the 1st of March, 1831, "For leave to bring in a Bill to amend the representation of the people in England and Wales.

This sweeping measure was to disfranchise 60 "Rotten Pocket Boroughs" of most diminutive numbers of voters holding their rights under all sorts of curious conditions. These Boroughs then sent 120 members to Parliament; besides 47 Boroughs were to lose one member each, making 168 old members to be ejected from the House; this annihilation of "vested rights" was to be supplied by 34 new members to be selected by manufacturing towns, most of which had no Borough representation at all, and 55 additional members were to be added to the counties. Such a startling measure as this necessarily created a wild and frantic torrent of indignation amongst all classes concerned in maintaining the unjust and vicious system of mis-representation and jobbery, whilst those large towns (of which Dudley was one) were

jubilant at the prospects of a new feature in those local privileges, " a Borough representation." This marvellous debate extended over a period of thirteen long nights in the House of Commons, and was carried by a majority of votes.

It is almost needless to say that Lord John Russell's speech, as published in the political life of the Earl, has become history, and was one of the most telling and searching exhibitions of close, clear, and comprehensive reasonings ever uttered in the British Parliament.

EXTRACTS FROM REFORM SPEECHES.

Mr. Joseph Hume says, " But I must submit that in whatever way' you view the question it is one of immense difficulty, because in the established institutions of this country any change from the worse to the better must always be attended with great difficulty, so far as individual interests and contending parties are concerned. It is with this view His Majesty's Ministers have done wisely. I candidly confess that when the noble lord stated yesterday that it was not the intention of the Ministry to introduce any clause respecting altering the duration of Parliament, or Vote by Ballot, it struck me that the measure was defective in that respect.

Lord Newark "Did not suppose at a moment's warning it would put an end to all corruption, but it was the vainest of all possible expectations to imagine that reformed Parliament would not do more than anything else to abate the evil. He confessed that he had not been prepared for so sweeping a measure, and he hoped that they might be induced to modify it before it was passed."

Lord Darlington "Thought the rotten Boroughs ought to be carefully observed, and when they were detected, should be deprived of their Charter, but he could never agree with those who sought to demolish the social structure for the purpose of erecting their own temple in its stead."

6

Lord Stormont "Would not agree to the Ministerial Budget of Reform. He represented Aldborough in Yorkshire. Now that borough happened to be surrounded with walls, and as the place was as fully occupied now as it was formerly, it was evident that no alteration had taken place in the constituency. According to the noble Lord's statement, 163 members were called upon to pronounce civil death to their constituents; he, however, thought that there were not 168 gentlemen to be found anywhere who would be ready to vote their own damnation." (Sensation.)

Mr. Macaulay. "For himself he could only say, that so far as he was able to consider the proposition of the noble lord during the last twentyfour hours, he thought it a great, noble, and comprehensive measure, a medicine most skilfully prepared for removing a dangerous distemper, a plan excellently contrived for uniting and permanently knitting together all orders in the State. They had forgot the attempts made to put down emancipation, and how fruitless those attempts had proved. Did they wait for a time when demagogues demanded again to divide the power in the Cabinet of the Government of this country? or did they wait for that worst of all resources in a conflict with public opinion, the fidelity of the military? If they did not, let them concede Reform, while yet concession could be made with advantage to the

country. It was yet time to save the property of the country from risk, to save the multitude (who demanded reform) from its own ungovernable power and passion, to save it from that danger, which even a few days might expose them and the country to."

Mr. Hunt. "The people of England had for many years past been anxious for reform, and in 1816, 1817, and 1819, had loudly expressed their wishes for some measure to amend the state of representation. He did not condemn the ministers for not going the full length (universal suffrage) of his views; on the contrary, if they had only gone for disfranchising one rotten borough, they would have had his support on principle.'

Lord Morpeth said, "If the House was prepared to say that the demand for reform was not proper, that the evil was not manifest, that the corruption was not glaring, that they might with perfect consistency determine not to give up a stone of Gatton, and to die in the ditch at Old Sarum, where there was nothing left now but a ditch to die in. He believed that the House would not so far outrage the sense of the community as to say that they would not so much as entertain the question of reform. Two extreme parties (Tories and Radicals) were now agitating the country; one was opposed to all amelioration, and the other advocated the worst species of reform, with a view of subverting the existing institutions of the country, and all the gradations of rank, society, and order. Between those two extremes the only safe path was the Conservative principle to which the measure led that was now submitted to the House; to that let them hold fast. By conceding what was just, wise, and honest, they would be armed with tenfold power to resist the dangerous principles of some now promulgated, which were unjust, unwise, and unsafe.'

Sir Charles Wetherell said, "It appeared then by this Bill 60 boroughs were to be deprived of their franchise, and the time-honoured right of sending 120 members to Parliament, and that 47 were to lose one member each, and in the whole 168 members were to be ejected from that honourable house. He did not wish to call this by an offensive name, but as a great man (Mr. Locke) said that things should be called by their proper names, he would call it by the name of "Corporation Robbery"-(sensation). The present Cabinet of the noble lord, and his associates, seem to have proceeded upon the precedent in the history of England which had been set by Cromwell, Fairfax, Milbourne, and Co. Those worthy regicides set about reducing the number of members of Parliament in their day, and this plan of cutting off the boroughs, and confining the number of members, had not the merit of originality, for it was almost the same in form, in substance, and in principle, as the Radical system of reform, which has been introduced by regicides when they established a Commonwealth in England. Did gentlemen recollect how many experimental governments were now afloat? Did they recollect that there was a smithy of political blacksmiths, where constitutions were constantly on the anvil which was at work in making new fangled governments for all Europe. Let him be permitted, as he was in extremis, to utter the last expiring expressions of a dying member that Great Britain might not be added to the catalogue of experimental states, and that those visionary projects of His Majesty's Ministers might not be realised. He had taken the