214 KIDDERMINSTER.

are many places where a very short length of sewer would serve populous neighbourhoods; and others, like Churchfields, Clensmore, and Bromsgrove Street, that require merely a small piece to complete their drainage system; but the one answer to all complaints is "Stop till we get the drainage scheme!" The sanitary question has been brought before the town at several public meetings, which by large if not enlightened majorities pronounced against any outlay on that score! Well, let us hope for better things, in these days when fearful epidemics are teaching us all the gravest duties and responsibilities; and now we will take the briefest of glances at the history and conditions of the town.

The name Kidderminster has been made to represent (in old British) a church standing on the brow of a hill, and the water running under it. At the Conquest Kidderminster was the King's property; but Henry II gave it to one of his favourites (Mauser de Biset), a gentleman who had the invaluable privilege of carrying the King's first dish to table. Afterwards the manor became divided, and it successively passed through the hands of the Beauchamps, Abergavennys, Blounts, Waller the poet (who became ruined through meddling with things which did not concern him), and lastly, the Foleys and Earl Dudley. It had, ab antiquo, a market on Thursday, and six fairs in the year, which is the number it still enjoys. There are numerous charters, from Richard II to Charles I, the latter incorporating the borough (which had then become populous through its manufacture of cloth) with bailiff, justices, recorder, twelve capital burgesses, and twenty-five common council-men, and erecting the free grammar school into a corporation. The parish is divided into the borough and foreign, also the hamlet of Lower Mitton, or Stourport (which will be described as an independent town), and the hamlets of Franche, Hurcott, Trimpley (a chapelry), Habberley, and Wribbenhall (the latter chapelry having already been described as a suburb of Bewdley); likewise the lesser divisions or places in the foreign known as Hoarstone,