The beginning of all positive work set about by negative process is slow, and this, I suppose, would apply to keeping outside a public-house, for the Teetotal folk in Royston--handicapped, as in other places, by a name that has ever prejudiced and hampered a public movement--found out this to their cost. They did not lack stimulants when they first began to hold meetings, for the opposition camp came to the meeting, took care to come provided, and, fortifying themselves with bottles of beer, raised so much clamour that the recently enrolled policeman had to try his hand at checking intemperance and some broken heads rewarded his exertions. The publicans generally attended the meetings in good force and between the rival parties, instead of applause there was sometimes breaking of windows if nothing worse. The British School was one of the first public rooms used for these meetings. Of popular entertainments, as we now understand them, there were very few, not one where we now have a score, and until the erection of the British School no suitable building. It must not, however, be supposed that the town was entirely without the means of occasional recreation. The Assembly Room at the Red Lion was still a place of importance for public assemblies, and, for some years before Queen Victoria came to the throne, this room was the scene of some creditable displays of local talent. This talent took the thespian form, and the tradesmen of the town, banded together as the Royston Theatrical Amateur Society, were accustomed to draw the _elite_ of the town and neighbourhood into 3s. and 2s. 6d. seats (nothing less!) while they placed on the boards a rattling good version of _Bombastes Furioso_ and other pieces in popular favour at the time. {128} Reference has been made to the reluctance of the Parish Authorities--once bitten, twice shy--to let the Parish Room again as a School after the legal difficulty about getting rid of the tenant, but to their credit be it said they made an exception in favour of music--with a proviso. The late Mr. James Richardson, when a young man, it is on record, applied to the Parish Authorities "on behalf of several persons forming a Musical Band of this Town, that they may be allowed the use of the Vestry Room to meet and practise in." "Allowed providing they pay the constable to attend and see that everything is left secure and to prevent the boys annoying them or doing mischief to the premises."