although to this day many names in Sandwich are in their origin Dutch or French, they have been altered so greatly, following the original English inability to pronounce them, that they appear, on the face of them, sufficiently British. All the poetry in them has been obliterated in the process, and they have become quaint or grotesque. But those typical Sandwich names, “Gutterbock” and “Poisson,” are in their original form. The textile trades in time deserted Sandwich, and at last left it to a gentle sleep; and so it has drowsed away the last centuries. It is not the “dead town” it is commonly reported to be, and by no means to be judged by Cobbett’s uncomplimentary reference in 1823: “Sandwich, which is a rotten borough. Rottenness, putridity, is excellent for land, but bad for boroughs.” It was political rottenness that aroused his indignation; but that was no especial attribute of Sandwich, and therefore he need not have continued with the remark, “as villainous a hole as one would wish to see.” Wish _not_ to see, he doubtless meant, for nobody desires to see villainous holes. But Sandwich was not of his political creed, hence this fury. So much has been said of Sandwich as a “dead town” that strangers who first come to it full of the tales they have heard, of grass growing in its streets--and, for all I know, moss growing on its inhabitants-- are likely to be surprised at its comparative vitality. Grass does not grow like a lawn in the streets of Sandwich, in spite of all the far-fetched stories of decay and desolation that it pleases eloquent descriptive writers to tell, and it is something of a shock to find a quite busy railway station just outside the ramparts and a very modern “Stores” in whose windows are all sorts of twentieth-century provisions, for which modern coin of the realm, and not the quaint moneys of Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth, must be tendered. All these signs, including the occasional motor-cars that hurry through the narrow streets, are very reassuring, or very disastrous, according to your point of view. At Sandwich, which is supposed (in the pages of those super-eloquent writers aforesaid) to have given up the ghost long ago, but has done nothing of the kind, there should certainly be no railway, and there should be no room in a “dead” town for the gasworks which may be seen-- and smelt--on the quay, nor for the particularly large and busy brewery in Strand Street. At the mediæval Sandwich, thus pictured, the few remaining shopkeepers should stand in their doorways and address passers-by with “What d’ye lack, my masters?” but they don’t; and the thirsty wayfarer will call in vain for a posset of sack, a beaker of canary or malvoisie at the “Red Lion” or “King’s Arms.” Beshrew me, sirs, but he will need to content himself with a whisky-and-soda, mineral-waters, or the product of the local brewery already mentioned. I have no doubt, could he sample the old-style drinks, he would greatly prefer the modern.