218 KIDDERMINSTER.

in November, 1850, when her cats so mysteriously disappeared, cannot yet be forgotten. The schoolmaster, however, is now at work, most of the schools have libraries, there are several book clubs in the town, and even the police force have now afforded them the chance of raising themselves by intellectual cultivation above the grade of "peeler." VIII, an Infirmary; IX, a Savings Bank; X, Baths and Wash-Houses; XI, a Cemetery in the suburbs; XII, Public Rooms and Corn Exchange; XIII, very successful Schools of Design and Chemistry; XIV, a Town Hall; XV, a Post Office; XVI, Church of England Mutual Improvement Society; XVII, Working Men's Club; XVIII, Mechanics' Institute; XIX, Wesleyan, Baptist, Ebenezer, and Old Meeting Associations; XX, three Rifle Corps (Kidderminster having taken the field early in this national movement); XXI, Land and Building Societies; and XXII, Almshouses, Friendly Societies, and many charities, some of which are old-established and curious. A bachelor named Brecknell, in 1778, bequeathed a farthing loaf and twopenny cake annually to every single person, born in Church Street, who should apply for it on the 21st of June. The mere residents of that street, if not born there, are also entitled to a cake, but their claim is forfeited when they leave the street. The recipients make themselves truly "jolly" on the night of the distribution. There are other institutions of lesser note in the town, including a Highway Board, which has actually given satisfaction, and reduced the expense of road-repairing from £8. 2s. 4d. to £6. 19s. per mile (!)

Kidderminster is one of the oldest of our manufacturing towns. The clothing trade was carried on here in the thirteenth century, and 300 years later it was one of the four towns in the county to which the manufacture of woollen cloth was restricted. Weaving of stuffs and lingey-woolseys for hangings of rooms and beds was carried on in the seventeenth century, but, according to Baxter's account, the former was a frightfully unremunerative trade. In the parish accounts of St Michael's, Worcester, for the year 1623, there is an item of