At church on
Sunday he sat at the west end, the boys of the village sitting behind
him, and it was part of his duty to see that they behaved themselves
decorously. Should a boy make any disturbance Fewson's hand fell heavily
on the offender's ears, and so sharply that the sound of the blows could
be heard throughout the church. Such incidents as this were by no means
uncommon in churches in the days when Fewson and Dixon flourished, and
they were looked upon as nothing extraordinary, for small compunction
was felt in the punishment of unruly urchins.
I have been told of another clerk, for instance, who dealt such severe
blows on the heads of boys, who behaved in the least badly, with a by no
means small stick, that, like Fewson's, they, too, resounded all over
the church. This clerk was known as "Old Crack Skull," and there were
many others who might as appropriately have borne the name.
As parish clerk, Fewson attended the Archdeacon's visitation with the
churchwardens, whose custom it was on each such occasion to spend about
L3 in eating and drinking. On the appointment of a new and reforming
churchwarden this expenditure was stopped, and for the first time Fewson
returned to Riston sober. Here he looked at the churchwarden and
sorrowfully said, "For thirty years I have been to the visitation and
always got home drunk; Sally will think I haven't been.
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