The sum of £134 was expended in the repair of the church in the year
1718, and seven years later £2. 8s. for a font, £22. 5s. 8d. for
communion plate, and £4. 10s. for a communion cloth. The expenditure
for sacramental wine throughout the whole year 1683 was but 9s. 5d.,
yet the churchwardens could make heavy charges for sack, quarts of
"muskadell," and bottles of canary, for their own consumption. In 1727,
the sacramental wine cost £6. 12s. 10d. Every strange minister who
preached at the church--as was then the custom in all the parishes--was
rewarded with a bottle of wine, at a charge of 2s., but whether the
guinea fee accompanied it or not the record doth not say. "Ye parson
preaching a sermon on the powder deliverance," in 1725, received 10s.
6d.
A list is given (in 1683) of the "names of pore persons who had coats,
&c., sent by Mr. Fra. Haynes when he was mayor, as were bought with
ye Quakers' money." No doubt from the fines which were levied upon
that unhappy sect. (See subsequent part of this work.) Considerable
attention to the poor is observable in these books. A "Spanish bagg"
is ordered for Joyce Moorton in 1691, at a cost of 1s. What this
article was I have failed to discover. One Stumps, a female cripple,
seems to have occasioned a large outlay: there is "for Stumps's wooden
supporters, 3s.;" "for Stumps's new leggs, 2s.;" "paid Stumps when she
lay in, 6d.;" "mending Stumps's supporters, 4d.;" "for a new supporter
for Stumps, 2s. 6d." and "for buriall, grave, and coffin for Stumps's
child, 5s. 4d." In 1732, 2s. 6d. was spent in curing one Panting of a
"whorscold" (What disease was this?); and in the same year, "paid Mr.
Hooke for bleeding and drawing a tooth, 1s. 6d." A room was hired in
1718, for 4s., for "Captain Hemming's wife to lye in," but how that
lady happened to come under the cognizance of the parochial authorities
is one of those mysteries which will probably ever remain so. A few
years later occurs this graphic entry: "Wincot's wife in ye straw (and
he not well), 1s." About the same time 1s. was given "to three poor
strangers who were travelling from Lancashire to Somersetshire, and by
ye account they gave had been slaves in Africa, permitted by ye mayor
to ask alms."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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