COUNTY FEELING.
APROPOSAL is before the Local Government Board to transfer ten Essex parishes into Hertfordshire. In 1894 three others were transferred to Cambridgeshire, and have now been entirely merged in that county. It is not surprising to learn that the new proposal has caused " serious alarm and extreme regret to representative Essex feeling, especially to those who value historical and scientific records, and object to the disturbance of landmarks of extreme antiquity." However ancient the boundaries of English counties, the dislike of attempts to destroy personal identity is far older ; and in England, especially in rural England, the feeling that a man's county is part and parcel of himself is very strong indeed. He belongs first to his parish and then to his "shire," and they belong to him. Aristotle once remarked that people would like to have good things which they see that other people enjoy, but that at the same time, having obtained these, a man would wish to remain himself, or, as he says, "whatever he may be and is," and not to become some one else, even if he gained by the exchange.
To transfer some three thousand Essex men, women, and children born in parishes the history and records of which, when they have been recorded at all, are only set out in Essex chronicles—from the -day when the Conqueror's servants and commissioners entered in the Domesday Book the names of the Essex parishes and the numbers of their sheep and cattle, goats and swine, their mills and fisheries, and the extent of their ploughland and woods, to the last volume of the "Victoria County History "- to another county in the records of which their parishes are not mentioned for the past thousand years is a very violent proceeding. It almost resembles an act of conquest and annexation. Village history, though as a rule not individualised, but mixed up with county history, is enormously old. The demise of the land alone can be made good for many centuries on the large estates. Nearly all the intermarrying for quite as long a period has been between members of the same county. Generally speaking, only the gentry looked across the border to find wives, and they quite as frequently made a county alliance. But the alteration of county boundaries is very much a matter in which popular feeling should be consulted, and the sentiments of the farm and the cottage inquired into. In Essex, for example, Colchester or Chelmsford has always been regarded by these- people as their capital. Even when they have had to go there as witnesses at the Assize Courts, they have felt with relief that they would be among their own countymen, not among strangers. It is probable that those who have been so unfortunate, by circum-
stances entirely beyond their control, as to bring themselves within reach of what is termed "the arm of the law" have regarded it as flagrantly unfair to be tried anywhere but in their own county town. As the Wiltshire poacher said when committed with some friends for assault and battery on a keeper, "Us never minds to go to Devizes; it be so homely like."
Perhaps this is a class whose- feelings may be disregarded. But it is certain that, however little county people may know of London, they nearly always know, and are attached in a sense to, their county town. Of the poorer villagers, the carters go there on great occasions with their teams of horses, and the stockmen to the county shows held there. The others for ages have kept up a connection with it by means of those ancient institutions, the carriers' carts. They go in to see the shops and markets, or to the fairs. Tens of thousands of Norfolk villagers must go in to Norwich Fair, often from great distances, and deem it the event of the year. Not many years ago a first visit to Ipswich, or Hertford, or Cambridge, or Exeter always made a profound impression on the village lade, who had only read of towns, and the idea of their magnificence was never effaced, though at the same time they deeply mistrusted the urban population, as being probably critical, and possibly predatory; "Well, what did you see in Ipswich ? " the writer asked a boy of twelve who had come back from a voyage of discovery there in the carrier's cart. "Well, I saw the ships[on the Orwell], and the Tower Church, and the Town Hall, and the stone roads [paved streets], and the cattle market. But there must be a awful lot of crime there : there's prisons all under the streets. I see the folks looking up through the bars." These were the kitchens in the basements. Essex and Suffolk are much alike, and sentiment in each probably runs on the same lines. A Suffolk man from Aldeburgh was left with some others at Naples in charge of a yacht. Most people would think it rather a treat to spend December and January in the Bay of Naples. But the owner was not long away before he received a miserable letter asking that an Alde- burgh man might be sent out to keep Christmas with the writer, or "at least another Suffolk man."
Every one remembers the disputes over John Ridd, Devon claiming him because his farm was partly in Devon, while the other party said : "In Zumerzett thee was barn, and Znmerzett thee bee'st, Jan." To most country people the prospect of transference, and consequent "mixed nationality," would seem a real hardship. If they move elsewhere they talk most assertively about their own county, and generally look forward to revisiting it, and their own special village. Sometimes this pilgrimage, which always includes a visit to the family graves, is deferred so long that nearly all those who knew them are dead, and most painful scenes follow, these simple people who keep the memory of old friends and faces green being apparently quite incapable of remembering the flight of time and the shortness of life.
In the corporate county life there is a good deal of pomp and circumstance, and something of a revival of the very ancient sentiment of unity in loyalty or for defence, at long distances of time it is true ; but then the people have long memories. There were splendid county musters in the Armada time, for which great credit was awarded by her Majesty's Council. There were county musters, gallant enough, in the Napoleonic War. Nothing brings a com- munity so closely together as measures for common defence, and though such a bond as that which united the Cinque Ports will not be found elsewhere, there was a High Admiral of Suffolk, and the present class of " county " ships, such as the Essex,' the Kent,' and others, are now in contact with county feeling. An institution which kept up county feeling in a very high degree long before the " territorial " regiments were created, or rather before that system became general, was the Militia. The men were all from the county parishes and towns, and nearly all the officers local gentry. Now that the Yeomanry are deemed more important, and the different foot battalions are linked up, the feeling of county association in arms is growing stronger, though more might be done socially to recognise and encourage it. At a Northern county town recently the Yeomanry, in very considerable numbers, were gathered for training, with their camp, as very often happens, in the park of a county noble. On Sunday hundreds of them were in the town in their red tunics, looking extremely smart
and well set up, and it was noted with pride that all the tunics, which were very well cut and.fitted, were made by the local tailors. Satisfaction taken in such trifles may raise a smile. But for curiosity we may compare the entry in Sir John Oglander's diary, when, after years of importunity, he obtained leave for a fort to be built at Sandown, and saw the garrison in their uniforms and their commander. in black velvet at church at Brading on Sunday,—a real credit to" owre island," i.e., the Isle of Wight.
A proposal to transfer a portion of one of the great counties to another, such as a portion of Lancashire to Yorkshire, or of Nottingham to Derbyshire, would be so keenly resented that the idea would scarcely be entertained. But the same senti- ment exists almost as strongly elsewhere, though the protests might be less audible. The actual boundaries of counties are accurately known and immensely old, and great pains were taken to make them clear in remote and desolate spots. Thus in the most mountainous parish in England, Kirkby Stephen, on a huge hill called Morville Fell, the name of which itself records its possession by one of the Conqueror's tenants-in- chief, are some stone pillars called the Nine Standards, remote from habitation, among the curlews and grouse. These mark the place where the boundaries of the three counties of York- shire, Westmorland, and Durham meet. At Eamont Bridge, where the river divides Westmorland from its northern neighbour, is the hospitable legend, "Welcome here to Cumberland." Clearly in our local sentiment, while the Englishman's house is his caatle, his county is his "city." Not to belong to a county is as inconceivable to us as the groAtr civil), the citiless man, was to the Greeks of old ; and next worse to having no county is to be put violently into a new ono.
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