In 1793, Mr. Read, a Past Overseer, detained the Box, because his accounts were not passed. An action was brought for its recovery, which was long delayed, owing to two members of the Society giving Read a release, which he successfully pleaded in bar to the action. This rendered it necessary to take proceedings in equity: accordingly, a Bill was filed in Chancery against all three, and Read was compelled to deposit the box with Master Leeds until the end of the suit. Three years of litigation ensued. Eventually the Chancellor directed the Box to be restored to the Overseers' Society, and Mr. Read paid in costs £300. The extra costs amounted to £76. 13_s._ 11_d._, owing to the illegal proceedings of Mr. Read. The sum of £91. 7_s._ was at once raised; and the surplus spent upon a third case, of octagon shape. The top records the triumph: Justice trampling upon a prostrate man, from whose face a mask falls upon a writhing serpent. A second plate, on the outside of the fly-lid, represents the Lord Chancellor Loughborough, pronouncing his decree for the restoration of the Box, March 5, 1796. On the fourth or outer case is the Anniversary Meeting of the Past Overseers' Society, with the Churchwardens giving the charge previous to delivering the Box to the succeeding Overseer, who is bound to produce it at certain parochial entertainments, with three pipes of tobacco at the least, under the penalty of six bottles of claret; and to return the whole, with some addition, safe and sound, under a penalty of 200 guineas. A tobacco-stopper of mother-of-pearl, with a silver chain, is enclosed within the Box, and completes this unique Memorial of the kindly feeling which perpetuates year by year the old ceremonies of this united parish; and renders this traditionary piece of plate of great price, far outweighing its intrinsic value.[16] FOOTNOTES: [16] Westminster. By the Rev. Mackenzie S. C. Walcott, M.A., Curate of St. Margaret's, 1849, pp. 105-107. THE ROBIN HOOD. In the reign of George the Second there met, at a house in Essex-street, in the Strand, the Robin Hood Society, a debating Club, at which, every Monday, questions were proposed, and any member might speak on them for seven minutes; after which the "baker," who presided with a hammer in his hand, summed up the arguments. Arthur Mainwaring and Dr. Hugh Chamberlain were among the earliest members of this Society. Horace Walpole notices the Robin Hood as one of the celebrities which Monsieur Beaumont _saw_ in 1761: "it is incredible," says Walpole, "what pains he has taken to _see_:" he breakfasted at Strawberry Hill with Walpole, who was then "as much a curiosity to all foreigners as the tombs and lions."