About the end of the last century there was hardly anything that a man could see, taste, handle, or use, that was not taxed--windows, candles, tobacco pipes, almanacs, soap, newspapers, hats, bricks, domestic servants, watches, clocks, hair powder, besides nearly every article of food! All these in turn came under the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, till, as Sydney Smith said, "the school-boy had to whip a taxed top, the youth drove a taxed horse with taxed bridle along a taxed road; the old man poured medicine, which had paid 7 per cent., into a spoon that had paid 15; fell back upon a chintz bed which had paid 22 per cent., and expired in the arms of an apothecary who had paid a licence of L100 for the privilege of putting him to death; and immediately his property paid 2 to 10 per cent., and his virtues were handed down to posterity on taxed marble." The extravagant vagaries in the fashions of dressing the hair formed a tempting point for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to come down upon, and the tax in the form of "hair-powder certificates," at the rate of a guinea a head, occasioned perhaps more commotion in fashionable circles than any other tax. It was a profitable source of revenue owing to the great use of hair-powder, and at the same time its disuse would mean a gain in the supply of flour, of which it was largely made, for consumption. Short hair, or "crops," soon came into fashion as a means of evading the tax and "dishing" the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a re-action which was responsible for the following parody of _Hamlet_:-- To crop, or not to crop, that is the question:-- Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer The plague of powder and loquacious barbers; Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by the scissors, end them? From the old Royston Book Club debates of last century it will be remembered that I quoted the result of a vote upon--which of the three professions, of divinity, law and physic, was most beneficial to mankind, and that the doctors could only get one vote, against a respectable number for law and divinity. I ventured to suggest that the bleeding, blistering and purging at certain seasons was probably responsible for {80} the low estimate of the medical profession, and of this may be given the following example-- In 1799, the parish doctor's bill for the Therfield paupers contained twelve items for "blisters," eight for bleeding (at 6d. each!), and in another, eight for "leeches." There was a much more detailed account given in the old doctors' bills of a century ago than in the curt missives which are now usually limited to the "professional attendance" with which the old bills began, and the "total" with which they finished; "bleeding, blistering, leeches, vomits, julep, boluses," &c., were all duly accounted for. The following is a _bona fide_ doctor's bill of 1788, delivered to and paid by a resident in one of the villages of this district:--