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custom during the years he resided in his hermitage (for such in reality it appeared) to fire off daily, on the setting of the sun and on occasions of importance, a small cannon and generally to an assemblage of children. This he did with some difficulty, as the Corporal supported himself on crutches. On the Coronation of George IV., July 19th, 1821, festivities took place on the Level and the spot that now forms Park Crescent (which the following year was laid out as Ireland's Tea Gardens), when the Corporal and his colony were jeopardised by a huge bonfire in close proximity to his dwelling. In its centre was a pole, surmounted by a tar tub, but, fortunately, the wind shifted to another quarter, consequently the threatened calamity was averted, and the burning embers of the same fell outside of the fosse of his fortifications.
At a short space from the graves of these two Brighton characters was buried Schmidt, the celebrated trumpeter of the Prince Regent's Band, already alluded to. |
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GOVERNMENT OF THE TOWN.—ANCIENT AND MODERN.
In the time of King Alfred, England was divided into Shires, the Shires into Hundreds, and the Hundreds into Tithings, tithing men into Head-boroughs—or heads of boroughs—these were the only guardians of the peace and dispensers of justice within their respective districts, the original limits being the residences of ten creorles or freemen, with their families and slaves. Under the Saxon constitution Brighthelmstone had two Head-boroughs, a proof that its population even then was far from being inconsiderable. These Head-boroughs sat alternately or together, at the Borough Court, at which the decenners |
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