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Asaph. He was a member of the Calvinistio Methodist body, and was ordained pastor in 1870. For nearly thirty years prior to his death he had been connected with the British and Foreign Bible Society, and his services as deputation secretary for Shropshire and North Wales, could scarcely have been equalled and certainly not surpassed. In this capacity he also frequently visited South Wales and elsewhere, and never failed to win the good opinion of all with whom he came in contact. He visited America about ten years ago, and received the honorary degree of D.D. from one of the Universities there. About four years ago he was Moderator of the North Wales Association, and delivered an address from the chair at Machynlleth, and as a platform speaker he always gained and had no difficulty in retaining, the interest of his audience. He married Miss Edwards, daughter of the late Rev Dr Lewis Edwards, Principal of BalaCollege, and great grand-daughter of Thomas Charles, one of the founders of the Bible Society. In addition to his wife, Dr Lewis leaves four sons and two daughters, one of his sons, the Rev Fredk. Lewis, being a Presbyterian minister in America. A brother of Mrs Lewis's, the Rev D. Charles Edwards, M.A., formerly of Merthyr, has been appointed deputation secretary to the British and Foreign Bible Society for North Wales and Shropshire in succession to Dr Dickens Lewis.

The funeral, an extraordinarily large one, took place yesterday, the remains being interred in Shrewsbury General Cemetery.

The Late F. R. H. Atcherley, Esq.

It is with deep regret that we have to announce the death of Mr F. R. H. Atcherley, which took place at his residence, Stone House, West Felton, on Saturday afternoon. Mr Atcherley, who had been ailing for some little time, took to his bed on Sunday week, and Dr. Lewis of Oswestry was called in. The case proved to be a slight attack of rheumatic fever with which there were other complications. The nature of the illness was, however, not considered serious, and towards the end of the week Mr Atcherley appeared to be progressing satisfactorily. Dr. Lewis saw Mr Atcherley on Saturday morning, when he found him much worse, but afterwards he revived. Mr Atcherley subsequently had a sudden and dangerous relapse. Dr. Lewis was hurriedly recalled by telegraph, and when he reached Stone House he found Mr Atcherley in a convulsive fit. From this he never recovered consciousness and he died at 3 p.m. The premature death of one so genial and so highly esteemed has Cast a gloom over the whole parish, and the feelings of the people have gone out in genuine sympathy with the sorrowing widow in her bereavement. Mr Atcherley was always ready to assist the needy, and to help forward any charitable object. He will be greatly missed by the poor to whom he was exceedingly kind and generous, and there is hardly a person in the neighbourhood who will not feel that by his death he has lost personal friend.

Mr Francis Robinson Hartland Atcherley was born at Toronto, in Canada, on January 8th, 1885,

and he had, therefore, at the time of his death, nearly completed his thirty-first year. He was the eldest son of Colonel Francis Topping Atcherley of the 30th Foot, now the 1st Battalion East Lanca shire Regiment. Col. Atcherley, who died in 1874, served with distinction in the Crimean War, for which he held the two Crimean medals. He also held the Mejidjeh medal and the Legion of Honour. He sold his commission, and subsequently was ap pointed to the commard of a section of the Canadian Militia. In Canada he married Miss Heward, a member of an old and well-known Canadian family, by whom he had five children, of whom three survive, Mr Richard Atcherley, solicitor, London, Mr Llewelyn Atcherley, of the Army Service Corps, and Miss Grace Atcherley of Gresford. After attending school for some time at Rhy! Mr Atcherley studied at Wimbledon, and at Carlsruhe in Germany, his training being designed to qualify him for an appointment in the Foreign Office. In an examination for student-interpreterships he was successful in securing third place. The appointment which it brought he did not, however, take up. In 1887 he obtained his commission in the Army, and was ap pointed to a captaincy in the 3rd (Militia) Bat of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry. On the death in 1888 of his uncle, Mr David Atcherley, familiarly known as Squire Atcherley of Marton Hall, Mr Atcherley, as the next of kin, succeeded to the estates, which consist of Marton Hall, in Shropshire, and Cymmau Hall and the Fridd, in Flintshire. He took up his residence for nearly two years, removing on his marriage to the former place, where he resided West Felton. He married at Bowden, Cheshire, Miss Esther Hodgson Mills, daughter of Mr John Mills, of Northwold, Bowden, by whom he leaves one daughter, Muriel, aged five years.

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During his residence in the neighbourhood of Oswestry Mr Atcherley has taken a lively interest in public matters. A few years ago he was made a county magistrate, and he regularly sat at the meetings of the Oswestry County Sessions. As secretary of the Rural District Technical Instruc tion Committee of the Salop County Council for the Oswestry district, he did much to organize classes in the villages in the district, and in his own parish he took a very practical interest in the welfare of the scheme. On the passage of the Parish Councils Act Mr Atcherley was returned as one of the members for West Felton, and he has since acted as clerk to the Council. Mr Atcherley, who was a Conservative in politics, took little active interest in party questions,and he was gener. ally regarded as a man of broad and generous views. As a Churchman he was staunch to his principles, and an ardent worker in promoting the higher interests of the parish and its people. He was the teacher of a class in the Sunday School at Haughton, and also held a class in the Church Sunday School at Weirbrook, attending to the former in the morning and the latter in the afternoon. An athletic, well-developed figure himself, Mr Atcherley took a warm interest in popular games; he was one of the vice-presidents of the Oswestry United Football Club, and he

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Mr J. Parry-Jones delivered the second lecture upon this subj ot before the Christ Church Guild, in the Arthur Street Assembly Room, Oswestry, on Thursday, in continuation of the lecture deliver ed last year upon Rowland, Nevett, the ejected vicar of Oswestry.-The Chairman, the Rev J. J. Poynter, in introducing the lecturer, reminded the aulience that Mr Parry-Jones had delivered a lecture on Nonconformity last session, and with such aco ptance that they were glad to have the fulfilment of his promise to give them the present one on a Nonconformist hero closely identified with their own early history.-Mr Parry-Jones then proceeded with his lecture. He said that in the same lonely farmhouse called The Bryn, in Carmarthenshire, were born 250 years ago two lads, James Howell and James Owen, relatives and friends, each of whom afterwards made a name for himself in Welsh history, the former, as his pompous epitaph in the Temple Church showed, as the King's first Historiographer, the courtier and man of fashion, the author of Howell's "Familiar Lettere," and the latter, in the words of his epitaph in Old St. Chad's Churchyard, Shrewsbury, as "The faithful and unremitting Preacher of Christ Crucified, first at Oswestry and afterwards at Shrewsbury. " James Owen's career was fully illustrated in his epitaph. He was born in 1654, the son of a "Person of Repute and noted Integrity," who had suffered much for his loyalty during the Civil War. All his children, however, nine in number, Lecame Nonconformists. Owen was educated at the Free School, Carmarthen, and afterwards by the Rev Samuel Jones, the founder of the first Nonconformist academy in Wales, the predecessor of Carmarthen College, who had the highest regard for his pupil as being "more ready to learn than he was to teach." Owen then for conscientious reasons decided to become a Nonconformist in spite of the persecutions which were then so hotly raging. The lecturer gave a sketch of the moral and religious condition of Wales at the time, quoting from Archdeacon Thomas's "History of the Diocese of St. Asaph," and Judge Johnes's well-known pamphlet. He said that the recent Methodist rvival had tended to obscure the story of the Nonconformists of a century earlier, but that considering the terrible persecution from which they suffered, and the darkness of the period, the wonder was that they had been able to accomplish so much. He referred to the efforts of Stephen Hughes and Thomas Gouge for the evan galisation of Wales, and the editions of the Bible and other books published by them, and said that James Owen commenced his career as assistant to Stephen Hughes, of whose interesting life he gave

a sketch. Thomas Gouge (who was an intimate friend of Isaac Watts and Archbishop Tillotson) was desirous to become acquainted with James Owen, whom he afterwards described as a "valuable pearl among craggy mountains." Owen then removed to Pwllheli, where he was apprehended and imprisoned for nine months for his Nonconformity. He then escaped to the house of Hugh Owen at Bronyclydwr, Merionethshire, by whom he was sheltered and where he continued his work. Owen preached his namesake's funeral sermon, in which he was forbidden to mention his name. Being driven from Merionethshire, he took shelter at Sweeney, and in the year 1676 became chaplain to Madam Baker, and "Minister to a congregation of serious people in and about Oswestry. In 1679 he rcmoved to Oswestry, where he continued for twenty years. Although a Presbyterian in Church government. yet he became minister to a Congrega tional Church, the fact being that at this time the distinction between the two denominations had disapp ared in the persecution common to both. On 17th November, 1679, he was married in Oswestry Parish Church to Mrs Sarah George, who is described as a "gentlewoman of seriousness and solidity." Soon after his settkment in Oswestry, Bishop Lloyd, who had been recently appointed to the see of St. Asaph, instituted a series of confereno s with the Nonconformists of the diocese, in the hope of reconciling them to the Church of England, so as to present a united front against the common foe, Roman Catholicism, of which he had imbibed an intense horror while acting as chaplain to the Princess of Orange at Amsterdam. Owen was only 25 years of age, and was summoned to defend his position. The lecturer then described the crowded conference at the old Town Hall in Oswestry on 27th September, 1681, between the bishop, aided by the "ingenious Mr Dodwell," and Owen, aided by PhilipHenry and Mr Jonathan Roberts of Llanvair, Denbigh. He read extracts from the verbatim account given in the lives of Philip Henry and James Owen, with the graphic incident as to the Oswestry magistrate who threatened to use the sword to root out Nonconformity, "but the Mayor took order for their safety. He quoted a remarkable passage from a pamphlet by Owen, which he had discovered, in which he stated that the bishop (who was one of the seven bishops sent to the Tower) afterwards told him that the Church of England would not have persecuted Nonconformists, but that she had been influenced by Popish counsels, and that she then saw her error, and if the Church of England did so again he would give him leave to call him, the bishon. a false prophet. The lecturer also alluded to the fact that the bishop in 1687 apprized Owen as a State secret of the invitation to William of Orange, and appealed to him for aid with his brethren. The lecturer then described the controversy as to Occasional conforming, in which Owen was the principal pamphleteer on the Nonconformist side,and other controversies in which he was engaged as to infant baptism, and the antiquity of Welsh civilization, and said that his writings disclosed an amazing amount of research and learning. He said that Owen spoke nine languages,

and was renowned far and wide for his eminence as a devoted minister, and he described the life at the academy, which Owen conducted in Oswestry, and afterwards at Shrewsbury for the education of young men for the ministry. Owen left Oswestry amid the tears of his flock for Shrewsbury in 1700, and became assistant to Francis Tallents, the ejected vicar of St. Mary's. He died in 1706, and the lecturer quoted his most touching funeral sermon, preached by Matthew Henry, in which he spoke of Owen as "a friend with whom he had had acquaintance about seven or eight and twenty years, with whom he had taken sweet counsel, his own friend and his father's friend," and he conoluded by quoting the peroration of the sermon, "In our lives we were not much divided, neither in time nor place so far: and how long we may be in our death He only knows in whose hand our breath and lives are. God of His Grace make us ready and willing to go after Him." On the motion of the Chairman, the lecturer was thanked by the audience, and he promised, if possible, next winter to conclude the series by an account of another forgotten Welshman, Dr Edward Williams, the minister of the Old Chapel in 1780.

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THE SALTER FAMILY, OSWESTRY.Lewis Glyn Cothi (Gwaith, pp. 489-91) has a poem addressed to Nicholas ab Gruffydd ab Rhys, of Oswestry, one of the Yeomen of the Crown (now called Yeomen of the Guard) to Henry VI. It seems that an ancestor of the said Nicholas was named Robert Salter, for the poet observes (line 41-42) :

Llin Rhobert (myn bedd Lloniaw!) Salter, haul dros wlad draw. And in a footnote the editors of Gwaith Lewis Glyn Cothi observe:- "Llin Rhobert, &c. Robert Salter of Oswestry. The name is still preserved in that town." C.A.

OLD TOWN HOUSES.--The Carnarvon Herald (Sept. 27, 1895) records the demolition, to make way for an hotel, of an old house at Carnarvon called the Mona, at the corner of High-street and Shirehall-street, and next to the Bulkeley Arms, of which building it possibly, though not very probably, at one time formed

part. The house in question was at one time the town residence during the winter months of some of the old county families, and has a most interesting history. As for the house itself it was soundly built, and it is not an easy matter to demolish the old walls. Inside were many figure paintings and landscape scenes on wood panels, which, if put on the market, would probably realise good prices. The ceiling above the old bay window was also beautifully painted with figure subjects. After this old house has been pulled down there will remain only two or three of the old town residences. For nearly forty years and up to about 1818 the Mona was the residence of Mrs Maurice Owen, of Ty Gwyn and Hafod Dywyll, near Dolgelley, her husband having pre-deceased her some twenty years. Maurice Owen was of the ancient stock of Baron Owen, the Vice-chancellor of North Wales, who was killed in the woods on his return home to Dolgelley from the Carnarvon Assizes in the year 1555, and was a direct male descendant of Simon Owen, the sixth son of the Baron. After the death in 1803 of the Rev William Owen, M.A., of Brasenose College, Oxford, Mrs Owen's only brother, she was left the sole heiress of the property of her father, John Owen, of Castellmai, Carnarvon, and Plas yn Ngheidio, Lleyn, who was high-sheriff of Carnarvonshire in 1740, and who was lineally descended in the male line from Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, Prince of Powys, who reigned circa 1040. At Mrs Maurice Owen's death, her hus band's property went to his relations, whereas her father's property went in the same way to his. Taking advantage of the present restoraTy Coch, is now renewing their gravestone, tion of Llanbeblig Church, Mr John Owen, of just outside the east window, and placing a tablet in the church to their memory. From an antiquarian point of view, it is a pity to see these old houses demolished. The Rev Peter Bailey Williams, in a book published by him in 1821, says "So late as fifty or sixty years ago, and for a long time prior to that period, several of the principal families of this and the neighbouring county had a town house at Carnarvon, where they generally used to spend the winter, and others resided here constantly. Most of these were persons possessed of good incomes, and many of them kept their own carriages, had always a good table, and lived in the good old hospitable style of their ancestors, so that when a gentleman happened to come into the town, if he had any acquaintance with some of these families, he generally went to his friend's house, and not to an inn." C.

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CURRENT NOTES.

Alderman J. W. McMichael of Bridgnorth died on Saturday.

It is stated that 35,000 people attended an eisteddfod at Salt Lake City in the United States in October.

The death took place yesterday week at his residence, Hasketon Manor, Woodbridge, Suffolk, of Colonel Thomas William Haines, Colonel in command of the 4th Batt. of the Norfolk Regiment. Colonel Haines, who was a Conservative, was a magistrate for the counties of Montgomery and Suffolk.

daughter of John Lloyd of Llanforda, and "Sirshire Gazette (1824) to the effect that Welsh John Evance, curate, of Llanforda, 1588, Sir John services were then held in the National SchoolEvance, clerk, 1614, and Robert Evance, clerk, room over the Town Clerk's Office. When were 1652?" The three latter were living at the dates they again discontinued? W.0. mentioned, which are taken from Oswestry Registers. A church formerly existed at Llanforda, and was suppressed by a Bishop of St. Asaph. A.V.E. SMOKING.-Did Sir Walter Raleigh introduce smoking into England, or did he introduce tobacco smoking? There are small pipes called "Fairy Pipes often found embedded in the earth and in the ruins of cottagers' abodes. The bowl is just big enough to admit the tip of the little finger, and they seem to be very old. The quantity of smoking stuff they are able to hold is so small that apparently something stronger than tobacco was used. The other day, when travelling in the train with an intelligent working man, an aged Cheshire man, who was a botanist, I was informed by him that the agricultural labouring men in Cheshire smoke the foliage of the coltsfoot and May-bright as substitutes for tobacco, and he also named some other wild plant which they smoked. Does this post-peace and deputy-lieutenant of the county. date or ante-date tobacco smoking? We cannot really be positive that these substitutes for tobacco were smoked by the farm labourers from remote times, but, taken in conjunction with the fairy pipes,it would seem smoking is an old indulgence in England.

REPLIES.

E.O.

WHITE HORSE (Oct. 9, 1895).-When a white horse comes into view it is usual to spit over one's finger for luck, and, having done this, to turn one's face away from the animal and not to look that way again until it may be safely assumed to have gone out of sight, for, if seen again, the spell is considered to be broken. Montgomery.

J. E. TOMLEY. SYMPATHETIC CURES.-GREASING A FORK (May 22, 1895).-The case of "Salving the weapon" cited by " W.O." has already been paralleled in BYE-GONES at least twice; April 19, 1876, a case mentioned with others by Miss Burne (Shropshire Folk-Lore, p. 198), and July 12, 1893, at Churchstoke. I have no recollection of a case in a thoroughly Welsh district. The idea that a mad dog must be killed to avoid hydrophobia for the person bitten is, I suppose, an analogous belief. N.W.T.

WELSH SERVICES AT ST. OSWALD'S CHURCH, OSWESTRY (August 21, 1895.)— CYMRO should refer to the first volume of BYEGONES for a reply. He will there find the subject dealt with by more than one contributor. The present Bishop of Wakefield stated, on the authority of an entry in Whittington Parish Register, that Welsh services ceased in Oswestry Church in 1814; but JARCO quotes the Shrop VOL. IV. New Series [being Vol. 18th from the beginning.]

Sir William Davies, formerly M.P. for Pembrokeshire, and head of the firm of solicitors, Davies, George, and Davies, died on Saturday morning, at Haverfordwest. He was born in 1823 widow and several children, was a justice of the and knighted in 1893. Deceased, who leaves a

Mr Gwenogfryn Evans has completed the first volume of his Catalogue of Welsh Manuscripts, and it has been some time in the printer's hands, and may be expected to appear in two or three months. One of the most interesting documents in the Mostyn collection is a History of His Own Times by a Welsh Soldier in the reign of Elizabeth.

Amongst the curious fairs in Wales are a fig fair at Llangyfelach, a cherry fair in the neighbourhood of Pontypool, and a mutton pie fair at Templeton, where for a week or more the families of the village are busy in manufacturing pies, which are circular in form and about four inches in diameter, containing suet and currants. Supplies are said to be sent to the natives of Templeton in various parts of the country, 80 that they may unite with their friends at home in eating the delicacy on the fair day.

Mr Sydney Lee, in his notice of Penry in the Dictionary of National Biography, quotes a rhyme, current in the North of England at the time, expressing the satisfaction of the orthodox at his death

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more to be divided equally among their children, four in number. To his workmen he left £5 and a suit of clothes each; £10 to his apprentice, with his watch and gold chain; £10 to poor members of his congregation; £20 to foreign missions; £5 to his landlady, with the chair in which he used to sit, his pictures, and his clothes chest; £5 and the royalty derivable frem "Straeon y Pentan " for forty years to a friend. The residue of the personalty goes to his three nieces.

We regret to record the death of Lord De Tabley, which took place on Friday. Lord De Tabley, who was the third baron, unsuccessfully contested Mid-Cheshire as a Liberal in 1868, and succeeded his father in the title in 1867. His sister, the Hon. Eleanor Leicester, married in Jan., 1864, Sir Baldwyn Leighton, Bart., of Loton. Lord De Tabley, who was endowed with great poetic gifts, was the author of "Poems, Dramatic and Lyrical," and other works. He was unmarried, and he is succeeded in his baronetcy, which was created in 1671, by Mr Peter Fleming Frederic Leicester, son of the late Rev F. Leicester, nephew of the first Lord De Tabley.

By the death of Mr Daniel Howell on November 7, at Toledo, Ohio, U.S.A., disappears the last member of a remarkable Montgomeryshire family, several members of which by their energy and enterprise did much for the commercial development of North Wales, particularly of their native county. Mr Howell was the youngest of the ten sons-the family also included two daughters -of Mr William Howell, of Bont, Dolgadfan, Llanbrynmair, his better known brothers who both died at an advanced age, being Mr Abraham Howell of Rhiewport, Welshpool, and Mr David Howell of Aberdovey and Machynlleth. Mr Daniel Howell was born on August 12, 1824, and was in early life articled to Mr Yates, a land surveyor at Whittington. He left this country for the United States at the age of twenty-five. The remains were interred Woodlawn, Toledo.

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NOTICES OF BOOKS. The current Part of Archeologia Cambrensis opens with Notes upon some Bronze and Stone Weapons discovered in Wales. Several of them belong to Colonel Lloyd Verney of Clochfaen, and were found on Caban Coch Common, near Rhayader; another was discovered in 1884 at Llanfor, Bala. When shall we have a Welsh Museum, where, it may be hoped, many possessors of interesting antiquities like these would willingly deposit them? The other papers are "Flintshire Genealogical Notes" (continued), "Discovery of the tombstone of Vortipore, Prince of Demetia, at Llanfallteg," and "Goidelic words in Brythonic," by Professor Rhys, which occupies forty pages. In the Archæolorical Notes it is recorded that oyster shells were almost universally used as lamps in Gower until forty or fifty years ago. They were simply charged with fat, pig-fat by preference, and the wick was a split and plaited rush or a twisted or folded rag.

Wales for November (Wrexham : Hughes and Son) devotes a good deal of attention to the new University. In the opening paper, "A New Power in Wales," the members of the Guild of Graduates are exhorted to make use of their opportunities to develop thought and culture in Wales. In time there will be graduates all over the Principality, and if the Guild begins to work at once, and begins well, it may, indeed, become a new power in Wales. As to its duties, the writer says they are these:--1st, to meet; 2nd, to criticize (the proceedings of the Council and Senate); 3rd, to encourage and guide individual effort. "Lecture rooms will in time be sa plentiful as chapels in Wales, and the love for secular education as strong as the love for religious instruction is to-day." There is also a description of "The University Week," and the University Court is described "from the Press Table." Another noteworthy paper is the first of a series on "Three Ancient Welsh Drinking Vessels," the Cup of Nant Eos, the Hirlas Hora of Golden Grove, and the Hirlas Horn of Clochfaen. Of the Nant Eos Cup, which is said to be made out of a piece of the True Cross, two illustrations are given, one of the vessel when it was entire thirty years ago, the other as it is now, after pieces have been taken out to keep as relics. Mr John Jones (Ivon), writing in Ysten Sioned, states that he went with his mule all the way from Monmouthshire to Nant Eos to borrow the cup for a sick woman, and after some demur it was lent, a watch worth £7 being left in pledge. It is related that John Roberts the harper (who died about two years ago), when once at Nant Eos, which he often visited, jeered at the cup and its alleged virtues, but he spent so bad a night in remorse at his conduct, that next day he returned from Aberystwyth, and asked to handle the sacred vessel. After spending some time in gazing at it he wrote, "This cup was handled by John Roberts, Telynor Cymru, on the 4th of May, 1887. Mind completely at ease.' The Memoranda kept by the butler at Nant Eos, here printed, relate a number of cases, subsequently to 1857, in which the cup was borrowed, and the patient was usually cured. As late as 1887 there was a "wonderful cure."

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DECEMBER 4, 1895.

NOTES.

SOME WELSH NOTABILITIES OF THE 16TH CENTURY. (I.) DR. DAVID POWELL, VICAR OF RUABON, 1570-1598. Continued (Nov. 20, 1895).-The following is an Elegiac Ode, in the common Cywydd metre, by Lewys Dwnn, Herald-Bard, on the occasion of the death of Dr. Powell of Ruabon, who was one of his many friends and patrons. The language of the composition expresses proper feelings of emotion and sorrow,

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