ye
Poyningswish, in Twineham, which was 29 inches long from ye top of
ye nose to ye tip of ye taile; and John fflint had him and eat him.
He was left in a low slank after a fflood, and ye water fell away
from him, and he died. The fish I saw at John fflint's house ye
Sunday after they had him: and at night they boiled him for supper,
but could not eat one halfe of him; and there was six of them at
supper; John fflint and his wife Jane, and four of their children;
and ye next day they all fell on him again, and compassed him."

Here we have the spectacle of a good man struggling with
accuracy:--"August 19th, 1698. Paid Mr. Stheward for Dr. Comber's
paraphrase on ye Common Prayer, 20_s._ and 6_d._ for carriage. I paid it
at ye end of ye kitchen table next ye chamber stairs door, and nobody
in ye room but he and I. No, it was ye end of ye table next ye parlour.

"April 26th, 1709. I bought a salmon-trout of William Lindfield of
Grubbs, in Bolney, which he caught ye night before in his net, by his
old orchard, which was wounded by an otter. The trout weighed 11 lbs.
and 1/2; and was 3 foot 2 inches long from end to end, and but 2 foot 9
inches between ye eye and ye forke." There is also a record of a salmon
trout being caught at Bolney early in the last century, which weighed
22lbs. and was sent to King George IV. at Brighton.

I must quote a prescription from the diary:--"To cure the
hoopingcough:--get 3 field mice, flaw them, draw them, and roast one of
them, and let the party afflicted eat it; dry the other two in the oven
until they crumble to a powder, and put a little of this powder in what
the patient drinks at night and in the morning." Mice played, and still
play in remote districts, a large part in the rural pharmacopeia. A
Sussex doctor once told me that he had directed the mother of a boy at
Portslade to put some ice in a bag and tie it on the boy's forehead.
When, the next day, the doctor asked after his patient, the mother
replied briskly:--"Oh, Tommy's better, but the mice are dead."

[Sidenote: OATMEAL PUDDING]

The Stapley family ate an oatmeal pudding made in the following
manner:--

Of oats decorticated take two pound,
And of new milk enough the same to dround;
Of raisins of the sun, ston'd, ounces eight;
Of currants, cleanly picked, an equal weight;
Of suet, finely sliced, an ounce at least;
And six eggs newly taken from th