MRS HANNAH VINES
The household effects of the late Mrs. Vines were disposed of on Tuesday by Mr. T. Dreweatt, and as some of the furniture was of the good old-fashioned sort, the prices made were very satisfactory. I took the opportunity of looking over the house on the previous day, and found it one of those substantial, roomy, well-built residences, which our forefathers loved to build. Right away at the top of the house I came across some relics of the late Mr. Vines who name I noticed was still retained on the inner entrance door. In the corner of the room was a wig and gown, and with the aid of an excellent portrait of the deceased gentleman downstairs it was not difficult to recall him as, in the capacity of Clerk of the Peace, he opened the Quarter sessions and read that awe-inspiring proclamation against vice and immorality. In an adjoining room were the legal “remains” of the deceased layer, documents, red-taped and pigeon-holed, parchment covered books, and all thickly covered with the accumulated dust of years.
What a lot of moralising might such a sight induce? What profound secrets might still be contained in those pigeon holes, what tales of successful suits and disappointed debtors? Prompted by idle curiosity I opened on the books lying about, and the first entry that met my eye as something after this style, “Seeing you and advising you respecting a cow which you had sold in the fair and which purchases wished to return on the pretence that she was unsound, 6s. 8d”. What a careful statement of facts?
Another lot which attracted my attention, was a number of silk banners which had done duty on some election occasion many years ago. Inscribed in gilt letters on the silk were such mottoes, “Freedom to the slave”, “The choice of the people”, “Civil and religious liberty”, “Throckmorton and Agriculture”, the latter bearing designs of a plough and a what-sheaf. Such party emblems carry the mind back a great many years, when the points of issue were different from those which agitate the public mind, and when elections were the scene of such turmoil and party strife, even in our good old borough. |
