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176 HISTORY OF BISHOP AUCKLAND. buU-baitings, interludes, and, at all times, in the meaner sort of people by law prohibited, bowling." These games seem, however, to have become objectionable to the puritanical humour of the times, and accordingly we find the following ordinance for their suppression, dated April, 1644, issued by the Long Parliament : — " And because the prophanation of the Lord's Day hath been heretofore greatly occasioned by May-poles (a heathenish vanity, generally abused to supersti- tion and wickednesse,) the Lords and Commons do further order and ordain that all and singular May-poles, that are or shall be erected, shall be taken down and removed by the constables, bors- holders, tything-men, petty constables, and churchwardens of the parishes, when the same shall be ; and that no May-pole shall be hereafter set up, erected, or suffered to be within this kingdom of England, or dominion of Wales. The said oflicers to be fined five shillings weekly till the said May-pole be taken down.*' After the Kestoration, however, their erection was again permitted. May-poles, with their attendant sports, have almost entirely disappeared from the North of England. The only one now to be found for miles around, stands in the pleasant village of Ovington, on the Yorkshire side of the river Tees, a few miles below Barnard Castle, where the annual taking down, decorating, and re-erecting of the May-pole is still practised. A remnant of these old customs existed in Bishop Auckland within the last half-century. Formerly, the mail bags were conveyed on horseback from Bishop Auckland to Kushyford, to meet the coaches passing through that place, going north and soutL They were also carried in the same way to Wolsingham and Stanhope ; and it was the custom to decorate the post- boys and their horses, on the First of May, with ribbons and flowers, the principal shop- keepers in each town, as well as the people at whose houses on the road they usually called, each giving a ribbon or rosette. Before reaching Auckland on their return journey their appearance, as may be imagined, was somewhat grand, and, as a matter of course, created quite a sensation in the old town, to the intense delight of the juvenile portion of its inhabitants. The last relic of bygone days we purpose noticing is " The Waits" — ^a kind of musical night- watch, who used to perambulate the streets during the winter season for the purpose of protecting the property of the inhabitants. They were generally comprised of two or three superannuated old tradesmen, whose knowledge of music, if any, served them in good stead. The Waits were in great vogue all over England in the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles, a time when the people of the country were surrounded with music and imbued with its associations. Each town had its Waits, and they figured largely in the pageantry and processions of those times. We frequently find items in the parish and municipal accounts for the payment of the Waits; and in the account rolls of Bishop Cosin, under date December 19th, 1665, we find, "Given to the Waits, 5s." There are people still living who can remember Old Nicholas Rutherford, who was the last repre- sentative of the fraternity in Bishop Auckland. Nichol, it would appear, was rather fond of hia glass, and when he had got one too many, and was unable in consequence to take his nightly rounds, his old wife, Betty, had to turn out as a substitute ; and on those occasions, instead of treating the inhabitants to an air on the fiddle and the usual salutation, which consisted in an announcement of the time of night or morning, as the case might be, and the state of the weather, she used to sing out at the top of her voice in the various parts of the town — Good morning, masters and mistresses all, Our Nichol's drank agyan, and ah's forc't te call Digitized by Google