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374 THE SUSSEX COAST |
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This place being now all in rubbish, and a few despicable hovells and cottages onely standing, hath yet a Major. The sea wch formerly render'd it a rich and commodious port has now forsaken it."
The Churchwardens' Accounts during the eighteenth century contain such entries as " Dressing of wittels at the wacking the bouns " (beating the bounds of the parish), " eatting and tobacker and for one point of wine," " for a year's dog whiping." Most parishes seem .to have made special and rather elaborate provision for whipping the dogs, and it is a point on which one would gladly have additional information, though it is clear that one chief object was to restrain the poor dogs from attending church service. Did the dog-whipper's jurisdiction extend to cats or to small boys ? * Did he wear a uniform? What amount of official recognition was accorded him? Was the Lord High Chief Whipper of Dogs at any time a figure at the Coronation? The money spent on whipping the dogs would not, at any rate so far as Winchel-sea is concerned, appear to have been expended in vain. Not only apparently did the whipped dogs seriously take to heart their lesson and improve their deportment, but their descendants have inherited dispositions so vastly ameliorated that any movement to revive the obsolete office would appear to be absolutely superfluous.
French Huguenot refugees established a few textile industries, but not on a large enough scale to revive the prosperity of the town, and the works were soon removed elsewhere, though to-day Win-chelsea possesses a most creditable little Lace
* Later. This seems to have been the case ; the Burwash parish accounts have an entry, *' Whipping disorderly boys and dogs during divine service," |
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