Welsh Journals

106 BYE-GONES. Sep., 1876. £5 should be employed by her executors, to the best use and profit of the poor people aforesaid. The Parliamentary Returns of 1786 state that this sum was then in the hands of Mr John Savage, who paid 5s annually for the interest thereof. Note.—This payment is now considered as a rent charge on a farm called Bryndderwen, in this parish, belonging to Mr John Savage, and he regularly pays 5s to the church¬ wardens on account thereof. HUMPHREYS' AND OTHERS' CHARITIES. In the parish registry before mentioned, under date 26th March, 1654, it is recorded that Richard Humphreys gave to the poor of this parish the sum of £5 towards the pur¬ chasing of a certain parcel of land, for the use of the poor ef the said parish for ever, to be distributed on the 24th of September yearly. In a terrier, dated 30th May, 1808, enumerating the various charities, is this entry: "Also that several timber trees had been sold off the aforesaid almhouse ground to the value of 503., to which was added the gift of Morgan Humphreys of 20s., and the gift of John Bennett of 20s., the vhole being together £4 10s., which was then in the hands of Mr Morris Stephens, together with the sum of £5, left by the above-named Richard Humphreys, the interest thereof being yearly paid by the occupiers of the lands of Gribbin." The Parliamentary Returns state that Richard Hum¬ phreys gave £5, which was then in the hands of Morris Stephens, who paid 9s. 6d. annually on account thereof ; there can be no doubt that this payment included the £4 10s. before mentioned, which would give, with that of Humphreys' £5, the exact amount of 9s. 6d. Note.—'The present owner of Gribbin's farm is Mr Edward Williams, of Welshpool; he has not paid anything on account of this charity, alleging that his uncle, Morris Stephens, the previous owner, had discontinued the pay¬ ment about 30 years ago.' URSULA EVANS'S CHARITY. The Parliamentary Returns of 1786 state that Mrs Ursula Evans (at what time was unknown), gave a rent charge of £1, payable from land then vested in Arthur Davis Owen, and in the margin is the following note : " Arthur Davis Owen has stopped payment of the said 20s for five years last past, for want of a copy of the will of the said Ursula Evans." Note.—'The property has since been sold by Mr Owen to Mr Andrew Jones, of Gwern Afon, in this parish, and is intermixed with his land called Pen-yr-allt. The payment has never been renewed.' September 6, 1876. THE SHREWSBURY NEWS.—A correspondent writes: -"Some thirty years ago a newsp<per was published in our county called the Shrewsbury News, which was edited, I think, by a very clever litterateur named Neale. Has any reader preserved a copy of the number in which appeared a satirical sketch of a would-be parliamentary representative in the Oswestry dis¬ trict, receiving the fal-e report of a vacancy in the county re¬ presentation, and setting various machinery in motion on a Sunday with a view to secure the Beat ? If so I should be ob¬ liged with the loan of it through the editor of Bye-gones." NOTES. A QUEER COLLECTION IN KHUABON CHURCH.—At RhuaboD, some forty or fifty years ago, there lived an old woman, who had a daughter in London, and as the coat of the letters from there was elevenpence each, the old dame found the paying for them tell upon her little income, and devised a plan of a collection for the same in church. Accordingly one Sunday, the clerk, Edward Edwards, appealed to the congregation that Mistress So-and-So, who was very poor indeed, had received one letter last week from her daughter in London, and one this week, and was too poor to pay for them, and would therefore ask the aid of those present. The plan succeeded well, and a good round sum was collected. It was tried on again some time afterwards, but this time the ruse didn't pay—Newspaper Cutting. M. OLD PARR.—There were several references to this "olde, olde, very olde" man of Salop in Bye-gones last year, in some of which doubts were very properly ex¬ pressed as to his extreme age. The other day, with a friend, I made my third visit to the cottage at Winnington, in which he lived for so many years, and for the first time I was able to get inside; the woman who has lived there for more thaa thirty years having been from home on my two former visits. The cottage is in much the same state as Old Parr left it when he was taken to London, and the present occupier has, in the chimney corner, two likenesses of Parr himself, and one of his so-called son, also reputed to be a centenarian. Of course the old lady believes in the Old Parr fiction, and in proof of it triumphantly told us that she had seen it all in a book ! We asked her what the book said, and she told us that when they came for Old Parr to " take him to the Parliament" they went into the house and said to an old man by the fireside " ' Owd mon we'en cum for yo,' but he replied ' Tinna me it's me faytner,' and ther the fayther was in the oak tree afore the door, and so they taed him out'n the tree." " But," I ven¬ tured to suggest in reply to this circumstantial statement, " Parr had no children to live beyond infancy"; when I was met with the prompt reply, " Oh ! it wun the base child he had by the ooman he dun penance for in Abberbury Church." This was a clencher; nevertheless it might be reasonably objected to the accuracy of the statement that Parr was said to be 105 when he did penance, and 152 when he was taken to London, so the age of the base born brat would not exceed 47 years, certainly not a sufficient age to be taken for the patriarch himself! For all this, we have a well-engraved picture purporting to be the elderly son of Old Parr; which your readers can see for themselves if they are fortunate enough to visit the cottage on a day when its occupant is not out " nurae-tending." Jabco. QUERIES. CROSS FOXES, MONTGOMERY.—In reference to a note in Bye-gones under the heading of " A Little More about Oswestry " as to the use of the name of "Cross Foxes" in lieu of " Wynnstay Arms " (May 10), I wish to enquire whether the " Cross Foxes " at Montgomery is so called, and if so, what connexion existed between that town and the Wynn family, beyond their kinship with that of Powys Castle, or the representation of the county for so long a time by a Wynn ? The following is from a Birmingham newspaper of 1788:—" A Capital Inn.—To be Let, and entered on at Lady-day next, That Capital INN called the Ceoss Foxes in the Town of Montgomery, with 30 or 4U Acres of good Pasture Land. The Tenant may be ac¬ commodated with any part of the Furniture now in tne House, at a fair Appraisement, For particulars enquire ot T. Simcocks, Bronhyddon, near Oswestry." W.H. ST. DAVID AND ST. KENED.— Dr Doran, in a Supplementary Chapter to his History of Court Fool* given in Chambers's Book of Days, speaks of the po**^ light that Pope Gregory took in the jokes of certain oapu