THE SIMNEL made here is much admired, and great quantities of this kind of cake are prepared about the season of Christmas and Lent. The word is supposed to have been derived from the Latin _simila_, signifying fine flour; but the common tradition fixes its origin to a dispute between a man named “Simon” and his wife “Nell.” One of them was desirous that the plum pudding should be baked, while the other insisted that it should be boiled: neither party being disposed to yield, it was therefore first boiled and afterwards baked (the processes that it now undergoes), and thus produced Sim-nell. The exterior crust, or shell (enclosing a compound of fruit) is hard, and deeply tinged with saffron. THE SHREWSBURY BRAWN is unrivalled, and has lately been patronised by His Majesty William the Fourth. Brawn is a Christmas dish of great antiquity, and may be found in most of the ancient bills of fare for coronations and other great feasts. “Brawn, mustard, and malmsey” were directed for breakfast during the reign of Elizabeth; and Dugdale, in his account of the Inner Temple Revels, states the same directions for that society. It is prepared from the flesh of boars fattened for the purpose. SHREWSBURY ALE has been commended from a remote period. _Iolo Goch_, the bard of Owen Glendower, eulogises the profusion with which “Cwrw Amwythig,” or Shrewsbury Ale, was dispensed in the mansion of his hero at Sycarth, which he seems to have visited previously to the insurrection of 1400. In the last century the properties of this beverage were thus extolled:— “Hops, Water, and Barley, are here of the best, Your March and October can well stand the test; The body is plump, and the visage ne’er pale, That imbibes, or is painted, with _Shrewsbury Ale_.” MARKETS. The market days are Wednesdays and Saturdays. The former is small, but that on the latter day is well attended and abundantly supplied. In fact, few towns enjoy the advantage of a better or cheaper supply of meat, poultry, butter, vegetables, fruit, &c. But it must be confessed that many places of far less importance than the capital of Shropshire possess more suitable accommodations befitting the ample produce brought from the surrounding districts to its markets. The space allotted for the sale of vegetables is in the spacious square opposite the County Hall, commonly called the “Green Market;” that for poultry, eggs, &c. on Pride Hill and in the Butter Cross. The shambles for butchers’ meat is in a street called “the Double Butcher Row;” and in Fish-street, near St. Julian’s church, are sheds and stands for the country butchers. The corn mart is held under the old market house. THE FAIRS.