Welsh Journals

Feb., 1876. BYE-GONES. 15 lives, whilst their furniture, bedding, &c, floated down the stream." Timber yards were emptied of their contents by the force of the water, and the warehouses of the Quays, and some mat chouses, were greatly damaged. Three men, in a boat, were driven under the arches of the Wyle-cop bridge, to the peril of their lives, the floods being so high, and two men were drowned, and a Mr Johnson, of Han Office, who had swallowed a quantity of water, was suffocated owing to the imprudence of some people who held him with his head downward under the absurd idea that the water would run from his mouth. The Severn at Cotton-hill was nine inches higher than in the flood of 1770; in Frankwell seven inches, and in Coleham two and a half inches Cornet Dupont, of the Somersetshire Fencibles, with two sergeants, narrowly escaped in removing three horses from a stable. The "Abbey Church exhibits a very singular and striking appearance ; all the graves in the aisles and chancel have fallen in, and appear as if, in consequence of the last awful trump, they had given up their dead." Feb. 12. The Severn rose at Colbrookdale 25J inches higher than it did in November, 1770. The rise in the night was so rapid that a vast number of the inhabitants were obliged to fly from their tenements, leaving their goods at the mercy of the floods. The publicans have been great sufferers, the barrels being floated and the bungs giving way. In the Swan and White Hart, the water was several feet deep. Two houses were washed away just below the Iron Bridge, which stood the pressure. Buildwas Bridge blew up, the river having risen above the key-stone in the centre of the main arch. Crowds visited the locality to see the floods and the ruins. Feb. 12. Buttington Bridge, over the Severn destroyed by the floods, and many of the weirs on the rivers in Mont¬ gomeryshire considerably damaged. March 11. In consequence of the late swell of the waters two of the arches of the bridge at Bridgnorth have given way. March 18. The damage done by the late floods to the bridges in Radnorshire only, is calculated at Ten thousand pounds. April 14. The masisfratas at the Shropshire Quarter Sessions, agreed with the Coalbrook Dale Company, to erect a cast-iron bridge of one ar< h over the river Severn at Buildwao, the span of which is to be one hundred and thirty feet, the wl th of the passage way eighteen feet, and to erect the same in nine months, for the sum of £3,700, being considerably less than if the same had been erected of stone. Jarco. QUE HIES. LEG STREET, OSWESTRY.—Ry the merest chance I came across the following letter in the Shrews¬ bury Chronicle of December 1, 1820 :—" There can be little doubt of the truth of your correspondent's exolanation of the origin of th- name • Leg Street' in Oswestry. On the attainder of Richard, Earl of Arundel, in the reign of Richard IT., the manor of Oswestry was granted to Lord Scrope, King of Man, the armVrial bearing of which island, is well known to be Three Legs of Man—the very «>rm of the above street." The letter was signed " L. M.O." the short-lived possession by Scrope of the manor of yswestry is mentioned by our local historians, but not the laotthat he was also King of Man, which last dignity, I presume, he also lost with the death of Richard. Visitors St U.s,*e8,ry often af"t the meaning of the name ' Leg weet, and I have alwavs understood it was in some way connected with the Manx Arms. Our Town Council, in its wisdom, has cut off one of the legs, and so knocked all meaning out of the name. It is bad enough to remove our ancient landmarks, but it is the refinement of cruelty to amputate a limb in doing so ! Will some one who has ac¬ cess to the earlier nambers of the Shrewsbury Chronicle for December, 1820, give us the previous communication alluded to? Oswald. REPLIES. SIGNBOARDS (Sep. 15, 1875).—In a book called Scrapiana, published by Richardson of Derby in 1824, the following is given as taken from a sign-post " in Wales." It may have been so taken, but it is scarcely of Welsh origin :— " This is a prave world we live in, To lend, to ppend, or to give in : Put to peg, to porrow, or to get one's own, 'Tis the worst world that ever was known, If you'll pelieve—Shenkin ap Shone." W.G. OLD FOLKS (Oct. 27, 1875).—There is now (says a Shrewsbury paper of May, 1851), living at the Higher Ship Inn, Bagillt, one Edward Hughes, fn his 95'-h year, who has lived there ten years, having previously kept the Red Lion, Llanasa, sixty-four years. During his career he has taken out seventy-four licences. Nemo. THE VAUGHANS OF CAERGAI (Dec. 29,1875). —Your correspondent CiPFIN is quite wrong in his pedigree of theVaughans of Caergai, and iu his statement as to how that estate became annexed to Wynnstay. The Vaughans of Caergai were a branch of those of Llwydiarth, and their pedigree runs thus : John Vaughan of Caergai, ap Rowland Vaughan of the same (r.he Welsh scholar), ap John Vaughan of Caergai, ap Rowland ap Owen ap John ap Howel Vaughan, of Llwydiarth. Howel Vaughan married Elen, daughter of John ap Meredith, not of Rhiwlas, but of Evionedd. It was not Rowland Vaughan, but Rowland ap Owen, who married Isabel, dau. of Cadw. ap Robert, of Rhiwlas. John Vaughan, the father of Rowland, the Welsh scholar, married Ellin Nanney of Nanney, and died 2d Dec, 1629. His son, Rowland, the Scholar, married Jane Price, the heiress of Prvsc, in Llanuwchllyn, wai Sheriff of Merion¬ ethshire in 1643, and was living in 15 Ch. II. His son, John Vauahan, was matriculated at Oxford, 10 AdMI, 1635, aged 18. He married Katherine Wynne, of Glyn. His son, Wm. Vaughan, married Cath :, dau. of Harry Lloyd, of Havodunos. Their marriage settlement is dated 14 Aug., 1676, and be died 13 Jan., 1685-6. His son, John Vaughan, was married at Llmgerniw, 5 March, 1697 8, to Margaret, dau. of Hedd Lloyd of Havodunos, and had issue, Howel Vaughan, who died without issue, Hedd, who died without issue, 11 Nov., 1736, a?ed 23, Miry Elizabeth, born 13 May, 1709. She was wife of the Rev. Henry Mainwarin?. and they sold Caergai, in 1740. to Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, Bart. One of these days, I will send you a copy of an amusing letter of Rowland Vaughan, relating to the marriage of his son. W. THE SIN-EATER IN WALES. The discussion on this subject, commenced in the Academy, and continued in that and other papers, was fully given in Byegones towards the close of last year. Our readers will remember that the discussion arose on a challenge by a well-known and able Welshman, the Rev. D. Silvan Evans, to the writer of an article in Blackwood, on the Folk Lore of Wales, to prove his assertion that ever