Year: 1879

We extract the following from a story
by Thomas Hughes (author of Tom
Browns ''Schooldays at Rugby'O, print
ed in St.sNichoIaS.s The story describes
the curious English ceremony called
Beating the Parish Bounds" both in
London and in the country.


Peter, Plump and Pip, the authors
| three y-characters, We're three as. active
young scamps as ever trod shoe-leather.
One day, they were having the iveliest
kind of fun hunting rabbits with ter
rier, when, in dense copse, they came
upon curiouslv marked stope bedded in
the earth. Meeting on the road an old
fellow named Gatfer Giles, who; was seat
ed on heap of stones, his legs wide
apart, engaged IN breaking the bigger
ones with long hammer, the boys
learned from him that their stone marked
the parish bounds. The old man was
easily persuaded to tell what he knew
about it, which, as Mr.. Hughes relates
it, was much as follows:


When he was a little chap at the parish
school, they had holiday every year on
Gang Monday" He didn't just mind
when it came round, but somewhere
about Whitsuntidc. Well, on Gang Mon
day morning, all the boys went to the
chu-chyard, and there was the lords
steward with map, and the parish con-
stable, and a smart few men and women.
too, who had a mind .tobeat the bounds
"possessloning (processioning) they
called it, or some such name. He was
no scholar. but minded the name for all
that.


SO the "posscssioncrs" started with the
steward in front and the constable ring
ing bell, and Che rest following in row.
They marched ali around the parish, and
now an 4 again tire steward: would stop,
and Sometimes they drove a stake orr set
up a stone like that one fl tic copsc
That was in places where there was a dis
putc about the parish line. Then they'd
use to catch boy or two and take him
by the arms and legs and bump him up
against the stone or tree, so as he should
remember the place at'terward.


At the brook, too, along that part OF It
where the parish line struck it. and ran
down it for, might be. two Or three fur
longs, there was a scramble to see who
should be pushed in to wade down. 1t
wasn't more than knee deep for any one
as knew which side to keep and where
to cross. But now and again some young
cnap as didn't know would be in. and
they as knew called him wrong so as he
should go plump into the holes above his
middle for all the folks to laugh at; and
sometimes they caught a boy and chucked
him in. But the boys mostly were too
knowing, and kept away from the men
when they got near this brook. --


There was a deal Of waste land too,
there, and the steward, he had an eve to
it all sure enough, as they went along, to
see that 10 poor man had run up bit of
a place for his jackass or pig, or fenced
round 4 rood of tatcrs or cabbages. He
minded one time when they came across
bit OF a sty as Israel Willis, the char
coal burner, had put up, and how at the
stewards bidding they had pulled it
down and chased Isracl's SOW and her
litter on the common. No, he knew
bettersnow Israel had gone to the bad,
and ended in the county Jail all along Of
that business. Twas no business Of
their'n to help clear the lords waste, and
now twas all took in and fenced off these
forty year, and no man the better but the
lord, and no place left for poor folk to
cut bit of furZe, or turn out a goose Or a
pig, OF pick few bits Of stick for q fire.


Then on Gang Mondays when they got
back. there was bread and cheese and ale
for all, and buns and glass Of ale for the
boys, and the bells ringing all the after
noon, and two shillings apiece for the
ringers. He had heard tell Of a piece Of
land called Gang Mondays land, as was
left in old times to pay for beating the
parish bounds. What had come of that
now? there was no holiday, nor bread and
cheese and ale, nor buns nor bell-ringing.


So old Giles crooned on, breaking a
stone now and then with whack of his
whip to case his sfeelings and glad of such
attentive listeners to his budget of old
stories and grievances, as the boys were
proving themselves to be.


They sat about him all ears, till the
church-clock in the distance struck five
and warned them Of tcatimc at the vicar
age. Then they jumped up and hurried
off, leaving old Giles sitting on the stone
heap and thwacking away with more than
usual diligence, as the thoughts Of van
ished holidays and the wrongs of the
poor came thronging back once more
across his awakened memory.


AS they trotted along toward the vi
Garage, the boys banded their chaff as
usual backward and forward, agreeing in
nothing but this one thing, that it would
be great fun--or real swagger," as
Plump would call ito have a Gang
Monday next year in Moreton parish.