each ward, whose office was to keep the peace in their several divisions. When anyone of them died, the freemen of that great ward in which the lesser ward was included, for which he was to serve, elected another in his place within five days. The common councilmen were elected by the freemen dwelling in each of the four great wards separately; for Conisford great ward on the Monday; Mancroft on the Tuesday; Wymer on the Wednesday; and the Northern ward on the Thursday in Passion week, thence called “cleansing” week. They chose a speaker yearly, who was called speaker of the commons. The old freemen therefore formed the whole of the local constituency for municipal purposes. Memoirs are often the best sources of information respecting public matters, as they let us behind the scenes and show us what the actors really thought and did. A good memoir of the late Professor Taylor, which appeared in the _Norfolk News_, of March 28th and April 4th, 1863, contained the following, “So far back as 1808 we find Mr. Taylor recording that he was ‘elected a common councilman for the fourth time.’” He also states that the contest for nominees in the Long ward was “the severest ever remembered.” Few people now-a-days could realize the import of those few words. Few understand how much was implied by the once common phrase “a battle for the Long ward.” The combatants would have scorned such mealy-mouthed appellations, as “conservative” and “liberal,” or indeed any name but that of the colors under which they fought. They were “blue-and-whites,” or “orange-and-purples;” the former being what would now be called the “liberal,” and the latter the “conservative,” party. To be a blue-and-white or an orange-and-purple, was to be an angel or a devil, as the case might be; the angels being of course those of your own side, to whichever you belonged. Great was the potency of colors: though not supposed to be worn at municipal elections, they were a rallying cry, and they were always at hand to be flouted, like a red rag at a turkey, in the face of the enemy. Even housemaids and children concealed them about their persons, in readiness to show them slyly from some window, both to encourage their friends and exasperate their enemies, whenever a procession passed. Great were the preparations for the contest. A sort of civic press-gang prowled the streets by night for the purpose of “cooping chickens,” which, being done into English, means carrying men off by force, and keeping them drunk and in confinement, so that if they could not be got to vote “for” it would be impossible for them to vote “against.” If they could not be safely secured in the city, they were “cribbed, cabined, and confined” in wherries on the river, or the broads, or even taken to Yarmouth and carried out to sea. When the day of battle came, great was the shouting, the drinking, the betting, the bribing, and the fighting, till the longest purse contrived to win the day.