Middlesex County Records. Edited by J. Cordy Jeaffreson. Vol. IV.
(Chapman and Hall.)—This volume contains the "In-
dictments, Rocognisances, Coroners' Inquisitions, Post-mortem, Orders, Memoranda" (which, by-the-way, should be translated "things to be noted," not "things to be remembered "), and Certi- ficates of Convictions of Conventielers from 19 Charles II. to 4 James II.—i.e., from 1667 to 1688. Mr. Jeaffreson furnishes, as usual, a preface, in which he collects together the most notable and interesting entries. " Spiriting " was a, common offence. Again and again we find persons charged with spiriting lads and young women on board-ship, for the purpose of soiling them in Virginia (called "an island," by-the-way). It does not appear, however, that justice was very promptly done in the matter. Nor was the penalty severe, considering what penalties were in those
days. Imprisonment and fine were the usual sentences, and
sometimes the pillory, while larceny of more than a certain value was punished with death. The costermonger question
was to the fore in those times. Margaret Wyatt is charged with being an "idle, vagrant person, wandering about with glasses for drinking and other glasses for sale and purchase to divers of the King's lieges in their private houses, and not in open fairs and markets." Margaret Wyatt, however, was acquitted. Anne Woodward did the same with cloth and was fined, and Alice Hall, for the same offence again, was whipped. A labourer steals
.C7 worth of lead from a roof, and is fined .R3 6s. Mary Browne takes clothes from the inside of a house of nearly the same value (.e.8 5s.), and is hanged. In 27 Charles II., there were machine- riots. Two men are charged with seizing from the house of one William Hodgson three "engine-weaving looms," placing them in the highway, and utterly destroying them. One is fined twenty marks, the other five hundred, and sentenced to remain in prison till the fine was paid, As the fine was £333 6s. Sc!., that probably meant remaining for life. He had also to stand for two hours in the pillory on three several days. Towards the end of Charles's reign, the charges against " Conventiclers " became very numerous. In 1067, we find the terror of the fire still present. A man is charged with saying that he had fireballs in his pocket, and would have more, "to the terror of his Majesty's lieges,"
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