Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/421

CHURCHWARDENS. 383 Robert Mason of Launceston, cordwayner, for abusing M r Gill upon the Lord's day, coming from S* Thomas church & sermon." These days of Puritanical intolerance were as certainly producing dissent as had the bigotry of Roman Catholicism which preceded it. The Mr. Gill of 1653-4 had perchance, at some time, exhibited his sympathy for the itinerant preacher George Fox, or for some other of the contemporary propagators of new doctrines, and Mr. Mason may have thought it becoming to taunt him with the fact. Mr. Gill was apparently an inhabitant of St. Thomas, and he may have been an ancestor of the Robert Gill who, a few years later, preferred that his children should be baptized by a "desenting minister." We have now little to add with reference to St. Thomas. It resumed its recording life on the 4th May, 1827. At a vestry then held in the parish church, George Nottle was " appointed Churchwarden for the Street [hamlet] of the said parish ; " and, on the same day, at the same place, Abel Uglow was " appointed churchwarden for the parish!' No reason is given for the adoption of this remarkable course. Perhaps the accounts which we have unearthed had been forgotten, or were unknown, or some facts with which we are unacquainted ma)', in the long interval of neglect, have arisen. The parishioners, at all events, then entered upon a practice which has continued to the present time.