Another inhabitant who deserves notice was Mr. Thomas Hayes, who as a poor lad began life in the humble and unpromising capacity of a pot-boy at a local public-house, from which post he raised himself, ‘entirely by his own merit,’ to that of a surgeon. He received his knowledge of pharmacy from Collins, whom Park calls ‘the glossarial stalking-horse of Steevens.’ Mr. Hayes died May 7, 1787, beloved and regretted by his friends and neighbours, respected and unenvied. He was laid in his native churchyard in Maiden Lane. Another inhabitant of Hampstead who has won the right to be remembered in a description of it was Mr. Thomas Mitchell, for twenty of his forty-eight years of life a schoolmaster in the town. He was the real founder of the Sunday-school, ‘and, by great application and attention to its interests, left it supported on a firm basis.’ He appears to have carried out with great earnestness the spirit of his self-made motto, ‘Do all the good you can.’ The poor were special objects of his care, and, without the aid of money, his practical good sense and actively philanthropical nature enabled him to strike out permanent means of assisting them. He was one of the Society of the Philo-Investigists, a society which, as we have elsewhere said, aimed at intellectual improvement, and suggested the benefit society afterwards known as the Flock of the Philo-Investigists. He did not live to see his benevolent scheme in action; but some years after his death, in 1799, it came into effect under the name of the Parochial Benefit Society. In 1802 Josiah Boydell appears to have taken a very keen interest and an active part in the care of the poor inhabitants of Hampstead, and to have materially aided in procuring better quarters than the old workhouse at Frognal for the superannuants and ailing pensioners of the parish. THE FATE OF A REFORMER. I have had occasion to speak of Mr. Abrahams’ pamphlet[304] several times in the course of these pages, a publication that fell like a bomb in an unexpectant place, and aroused among the well-to-do inhabitants of Hampstead anything but gratitude. This gentleman, who had ‘a way,’ he tells us, ‘of looking into things for himself,’ having become a parishioner of St. John’s, proceeded to act as he had done when resident in St. Luke’s, London, where his scrutiny into parochial transactions had resulted in a saving to Government of upwards of £2,000, and a reduction of the poor rates from 4s. 8d. in the pound to 3s., a result that led to an annual commemoration of the event at Canonbury House. But the people of Hampstead did not desire to be saved from themselves, and resented this new inhabitant’s interference with indignation. There is something very amusing in Mr. Abrahams’ account of the proceedings.