Thomas Colson, known to Ipswich people as Robinson Crusoe, died in the year 1811. He was originally a wool-comber, then a weaver, but the failure of that employment induced him to enter the Suffolk Militia, and while quartered in Leicester with his Regiment, he learned the trade of stocking weaving, which he afterwards followed in Suffolk. But this occupation he shortly exchanged for that of fisherman on the Orwell. His little craft, which he made himself, was a curiosity in its way, and seemed too crazy to live in bad weather, and yet in it he toiled day and night, in calm or storm. Subject to violent chronic complaints, with a mind somewhat disordered, in person tall and thin, with meagre countenance and piercing blue eyes, he was thus described by a contemporary poet— With squalid garments round him flung, And o’er his bending shoulders hung, A string of perforated stones, With knots of elm and horses bones. He dreams that wizards leagued with hell, Have o’er him cast their deadly spell; Though pinching pains his limbs endure, He holds his life by charms secure, And, while he feels the torturing ban, No wave can drown the spell-bound man. —But this security was the means of his death. In October, 1811, there was a great storm on the Orwell, and he was driven in his boat on the mud. He refused to leave his vessel, though advised and implored to do so. The ebb of the tide drew his boat into deep water, and he was drowned. Amongst the charitable women of Ipswich must be mentioned Miss Parish, a maiden lady, who died there in 1810. She seems to have relieved everyone who was in distress. At the time of her death she had actually twenty pensioners living in her house, besides children supported at different schools, while numbers were cheered by her occasional donations. She was a good Samaritan indeed. It is to be hoped there are to be found many such in the Ipswich of to-day. VI. LIVING NORWICH.