The Warrington Examiner. — 1873-11-15 (Warrington, Cheshire, England)

THE PENALTY CP ".SOITLING."  THE committal of the Master of the Cheshire Hounds for "unlawfully, maliciously, and feloniously shooting John Tomlinson, at Marston, on the first of November, and thereby causing him grievous bodily harm," is one of those awkward circumstances which it is difficult to understand. John Tomlinson is a man unknown to fame in the county of Cheshire, and so are his colleagues who, in virtue of an ancient custom, on All Hallows Eve went out a singing, in deference to that old usage, to the houses of Cheshire gentlemen to remind them of an hallowed custom somewhat associated with the traditions of the Christian religion. The serenade which, in several counties in the North of England, has signalised Hallowe'en, is a very ancient custom, and is known to nearly all of us. It is a custom hallowed by a certain antiquity, and, despite the irregular way in which old customs are necessarily celebrated in these practical times, retains a certain air of sanctity common to many usages which, though comparatively obsolete, are far indeed from being so. We can only refer to the case subject to the evidence which has been already submitted to the public through the newspaper accounts of the trial on Saturday last, and which resulted in the committal of Mr. forbet to further trial at the ICriutsford Sessions. On the face of that evidence we must say that the action of Mr. Corbet on Hallowe'en was extraordinary. We will not go into the origin of " souling" which, if we are not mistaken, has an old Catholic origin, relating in some way with the ancient doctrine of purgatory. Old usages survive in the country long after the reasons for their existence , have ceased to be intelligible. Such usages, at any rate, outlive the doctrines from which they spring, and are, in our days, commonly regarded as picturesque relics of an age that is past and gone. For all that, they have become associated with old country fashions, and they flourish considerably in those old world regions— such as Cheshire—where the feudal temper and disposition strangely combines itself with religious traditions that are rapidly becoming extinct. It seems strange that Mr. Corbet, the Mister of the Cheshi e Hounds, should have no sympathy with oldfashioned usages with which the class to which he belongs are not inconsiderably identified. The old habits and ways of the county to which he seems proud to belong, are of a feudal character, and might well commend themselves to the approval of so feudal a functionary as the Master of the Hounds. If we are not mistaken, the serenade Which Mr. Corbet resented with such extraordinary vigour represents, in a certain kiLd of way, the venerable union of Church and State. One wonders therefore that Mr. Corbet—a Master of the Cheshire Hounds, and, we should almost imagine, a Conservative to boot—should BO lightly, or darkly, appreciate the custom of " souling " that, instead of " refreshing " these quaint and midnigiit wanderers—these trimmers of the beautiful lamp of old tradi tion—he should regard them as personal enemies addicted to the vulgar vice of burglary. The whole story seems to resolve itself into the fact that the serenading " soulers " were carrying out an ancient and venerable custom, intimately entwined with feudal usages and history, and that Mr. Corbet,—who knew nothing of the traditions of his order—fired a gun at the fanatics (who might have been so many Druids) and laid himself open to the ignominious condition of being admitted to bail in his own recognizances of £2OO, and two sureties of £lOO each.  The truth is, the whole tone of Cheshire life is vitiated, and the class to which these Corbets belong, have yet to learn the lesson that free England has ceased to tolerate that temper which regards possible homicide as a venial offence, or sees in a Master of the Bounds somebody who is independent of the law.