Fanshawe of the Fifth; Being Memoirs of a Person of Quality

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1907 Excerpt: ... PERSON OF QUALITY CHAPTER THIRTEEN ON THE BAITING OF BULLS AND METHODISTS YOU must know that apart from the hiring-fair and usual Church festivals old custom yearly preserved to us in this town three days of riot. Of these Royal Oak Day and the Fifth of November commemorated historical deliverances, whilst Dean's or Dane's Day was held by the learned to refer to some defeat or expulsion of the Northmen. All three were mere saturnalia, days of license, on which aldermen and watch kept within and magistrates winked hard, whilst unpopular characters and causes trembled. The anniversary of King Charles's escape in the Boscobel Oak dawned ( or rather of his birthday, for seldom did a May oak bear foliage thick enough to screen a man from vigilant eyes ). The usual sports commenced. A football was kicked from end to end of the town by rival wards, rebounding from tiled roofs and shuttered windows. This was tame enough; the bull-baiting followed. A popular alderman and butcher found the bull; not the town only, but the whole country-side provided the dogs; farmers for miles around bringing their tykes to the proof. That this should have been permitted in the thoroughfare may seem strange, but the middle of the High Street widened into the likeness of a rude circus, and was from of old known as the Bull Ring, and here upon the cobbles, in the heart of the town, and beneath the windows of its principal burgesses, a disgusting spectacle was visible for some hours. From the window of my loft I could recognize my master's customers, yeomen and graziers, passing uptown with their dogs to join the close-packed mob. There goes Maude of Catersby, said I, and that will be Cennick of Stawell, and yonder are Robert and Edward Woodhead, the horse-dealers of Mutford, and...