Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/133

 Price threepence." In his preface, the writer, who speaks of having visited other countries, and being now at a low ebb, says, "Having lived in the parish of Eccles for the last eight months (1777), I have had some opportunity of making some remarks of the customs, manners, and behaviour of the inhabitants of the said parish, not only to strangers, but to each other, which behaviour I shall treat upon, together with some remarks upon the folly of guising. In some doggrel lines he reproves the local folly of guising, stigmatises a recent song as "base scurrility" and "lies," and adds—

The origin of Eccles guisings he understands to be, that "Mr Chorlton, of Monks Hall, had some men getting marl, and it being a custom for the general part of the neighbours to give some little to these men to drink, which enables them to go through that hard labour with cheerfulness, was a sort of foundation for the above custom. Some few young people of Catch Inn [a locality near the village, but within the township of Barton; there is still a Catch Inn or Catching Lane] made a small garland, by some called a posey, and on Friday, June 13th, 1777, carried the garland to the marl pit, and made the marlers a present of it, with 3s. 6d. The marlers in the evening bringing the garland into Eccles, it excited the curiosity of the young people to know by what means they got it, and being informed they had it from some young people of Catch Inn, it was then thought by the young people of Eccles an insult upon them for Catch Inn people to bring a garland to Mr Chorlton's marl-pit, as they belonged to the township of Barton, and Monks Hall and the pit belonged to