Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/140

 artistically arranged. The railway companies, the brewers, the spirit merchants, and all the principal dock-carriers, &c., send their teams with samples of produce to swell the procession. After parading the principal streets, headed by bands of music and banners, the horses are taken home to their respective stables, and public dinners are given to the carters by the Corporation, the railway companies, and other extensive firms. The Mayor and other members of the Corporation attend these annual feasts, and after the repasts are ended, the carters are usually addressed by some popular speaker, and much good advice is frequently given them from such quaint old sayings as—"The grey mare is the better horse;" "One man can lead a horse to the water, but ten cannot make him drink;" "Never put the cart before the horse," &c.

PRESTON GUILD MERCHANT—ITS CELEBRATION EVERY TWENTY YEARS. of the most ancient pageant festivals in the kingdom is held in the borough of Preston every twenty years, under the designation of the "Preston Guild Merchant." The guilds were of Anglo-Saxon origin, and Camden describes the Gilda Mercatoria as a liberty or privilege granted to merchants, whereby they were entitled to hold certain pleas of land and other possessions within their own precincts, and whereby neighbours enter into associations, and become bound to each other to bring forth him who commits any crime, or to make satisfaction to the injured party. At present, the Guild at Preston has for its object to receive and register the claims of persons having any right to the freedom or the franchises