It appeared that when the Rev. W. Moreton became very old he neglected his duties sadly, often keeping funerals and congregations waiting an unconscionable time, greatly to the scandal of the whole parish. In consequence of this the Churchwardens induced the Incumbent, two or three years before his death, to appoint and pay an energetic young Curate to assist him in his parochial ministrations. The Curate appointed under these circumstances, as already mentioned, was the Rev. G. H. Fisher, who speedily became a favourite, and by most Willenhall people came to be looked upon as the only possible successor to Mr. Moreton. Long before the advent of Mr. Fisher, however, the Darlaston folk had settled in their own minds that their Rector, the Rev. Mr. White, was to annex the Willenhall living whenever it become vacant. Whether they looked upon it as being appurtenant to the more important office of their own shepherding cannot be determined at this distance of time; but certain it is that an intense feeling of rivalry existed between the men of Darlaston and the men of Willenhall. The intensity of the feeling may best be judged by a remarkable incident which occurred some five years before Mr. Fisher appeared on the scene. During the earlier months of the year 1827 it would appear that there had been, from time to time, incursions and alarms between the two towns, and even rioting that involved hand to hand fighting in the streets. Never were such exciting times in these places. At last the rivalry culminated in an act of aggression as daring in execution as it was original in conception—the Willenhall men woke up one fine Sunday morning to find that the Darlastonians had entered their town in the dead of night and stolen the cock from the church steeple! Now the desperate achievement of this triumph over their enemies had a deeper significance than at first meets the eye. It must be borne in the mind that those were the old cockfighting days, when town matched against town their gamest birds, and sought the glories of a victory in the cock-pit. As between these two neighbouring parishes in particular, there had been much vaunting of birds and challenging to the arbitrament of the spur; the Darlaston men would take a game cock into Willenhall, hold him up to show him the weathercock on the steeple, and then give vent to a roar of defiant laughter when the bird crowed his challenge. By way of reprisal the men of Willenhall would raid Darlaston, and pretend to call the cock from the steeple there by scattering corn in the churchyard, in mocking allusion to an old tale of Darlastonian simplicity. No wonder, therefore, that the ridiculed were at last exasperated beyond endurance, and that the coup de main of stealing the Willenhall cock was not only projected, but carried to its marvellously successful issue.