they
called aliens. The expression itself was made use of not long ago at a
meeting of the Urban Council.]

[Footnote 2: R.B. Cunninghame Graham, "Hernando de Soto."]

May the venture to compass these ends succeed, to use an old saying, "ez
sartin ez t' thorn-bush."[1]

[Footnote 1: It used to be the custom for the parson to collect the tithe
by placing a branch of thorn in every tenth stook; he choosing the stooks
and sending his cart along for them. R. Blakeborough, "Yorkshire Humour
and Customs."]

E.W.D.

The Vicarage, Pickering.

_25th September_ 1904.

THE EVOLUTION

OF AN

ENGLISH TOWN

CHAPTER I

_Concerning those which follow_

"Brother," quod he, "where is now youre dwellyng,
Another day if that I sholde you seche?"
This yeman hym answerde, in softe speche:
"Brother," quod he, "fer in the north contree,
Where as I hope som tyme I shal thee see."

_The Friar's Tale. Chaucer._

In the North Riding of Yorkshire, there is a town of such antiquity that
its beginnings are lost far away in the mists of those times of which no
written records exist. What this town was originally called, it is
impossible to say, but since the days of William the Norman (a pleasanter
sounding name than "the Conqueror,") it has been consistently known as
Pickering, although there has always been a tendency to spell the name
with y's and to abandon the c, thus producing the curious-looking result
of _Pykeryng_; its sound, however was the same.

In his Chronicles, John Stow states on the authority of "divers writers"
that Pickering was built in the year 270 B.C., but I am inclined to think
that the earliest settlements on the site or in the neighbourhood of the
present town must have been originated at an infinitely earlier period.

But despite its undisputed antiquity there are many even in Yorkshire who
have never heard of the town, and in the south of England it is difficult
to find anyone who is aware that such a place exists. At Rennes during the
great military trial there was a Frenchman who asked "Who is Dreyfus?" and
we were surprised at such ignorance of a name that had been on the lips of
all France for years, but yet we discover ourselves to be astonishingly
lacking in the knowledge of our own little island and find ourselves
asking "why should anyone trouble to write a book about a town of which so
few have even heard?" But it is often in the out-of-the-way places that
historical t