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having acquitted themselves much to their own credit, and highly to the gratification of several hundreds of spectators, all of whom declared that the tout-ensemble formed one of the grandest and most interesting spectacles of the kind they had ever beheld.
We are concerned to add that, in the course of the review, one of the dragoons was dismounted, and, we fear, mortally hurt, by the rear ranks riding over him. His skull is said to have been fractured by one of the horses treading upon it. He was conveyed away in a cart, on a litter, and, notwithstanding the best surgical aid was offered to him, is reported to have died of the hurts he received. |
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At this period Rustic Fetes and Public Breakfasts were much in vogue in fashionable society, and one of the principal places of rendezvous was the Chalybeate and grounds on the Wick Estate,—at that time much resorted to by the affluent to partake of the waters. Many interesting stories are related in connection with the Chalybeate, one in particular, in which royalty figured conspicuously.
Nocturnal outings were also the fashion in early summer, ladies frequently, in their carriages, making midnight journeys to the neighbourhood of Dale Gate or Stanmer Park, for the purpose of listening to the sweet warbling of the nightingale. These journeys were taken to the no small inconvenience of servants in attendance and others employed in the stable yards : in consequence they determined, if possible, to put a stop to these eccentricities, and concerted the following plan:—Two or three of the stable-helpers disguised themselves and secreted in hedges near the spot where carriages and occupants drew up to listen to the ' sweet feathered songsters of the grove," and at a given signal they emerged |
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