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Royal Tunbridge Wells
ounces of water, and arise perhaps to twentie or thirtie ounces. But this may be a rule for a body of competent yeares and strength, to begin at thirtie, fortie, or fiftie ounces, and to arise by degrees, increasing this quantitie every day, to an hundreth, an hundreth and fiftie, or two hundred ounces, more or lesse, as they shall be able; and so againe to decline and decrease by degrees, ending where they began, when they are to leave the waters." l The only comment a layman may venture to make is that three hundred ounces of water is fifteen pints. The quantity was, however, gradually diminished. " They used formerly indeed to drink two quarts at Tunbridge and Bath, which would make eighteen good glasses, but not large ones," Francis Hare, Bishop of Chichester, wrote to his son in 1738. " But our physicians now unreservedly condemn that practice, and do not prescribe above a pint." 2 Though visitors were becoming more and more numerous, not until 1636 had it been thought worth while even to provide a resting-place for those who came from the neighbouring town to "The Wells," which, says one
1 The Queenes Wells, 57-59.
2 Hist. MSS. Com. Reports—T. J. Hare's MSS., 241. |
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