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During the campaigns in the Southern States a portion of the 63rd Regiment was mounted, and acted as cavalry under the command of Colonel Tarleton, and the records show that the 63rd Foot, whether mounted or as infantry, were in the thickest of the battles.

Eutaw Springs, an action fought by Colonel Stewart against General Greene, was an example of obstinate hard fighting; and earlier, in the year 1781, the West Suffolk Regiment was present at the attack by Lord Rawdon on Hobkirk's Hill. After nineteen years' service in the Australian colonies and in India, the Sixty-third returned to England in 1847. When the Crimean War broke out, the Sixty-third were stationed in Dublin. The regiment was twice called upon for volunteers for other regiments ordered to the East, and so hearty was the response that the battalion lost many of its best soldiers. However, when the invasion of the Crimea actually took place, the 63rd Foot were present, having embarked in the previous July for Turkey. The regiment received the three usual honours, Alma,' 'Inkerman,' 'Sevastopol,' for its services during the campaigns. As a matter of fact, it was not present at the Alma, as it formed part of the force left at Kamishlu under Colonel Torrens to clear the beach, and it only arrived at the scene of battle on the evening of September 20, after a forced march. But six weeks later it had its full share of hard fighting. Twice at critical moments at Inkerman did the Sixty-third, aligned with a wing of the 21st Fusiliers, execute gallant charges on the Russian infantry. On the second occasion no less than nine officers were stricken down, either dead or wounded; among the number was Colonel Swyny, in command.

It was a hard lot for our poor fellows in the awful winter of forty years ago, of which we have just had a gentle reminder, to suffer more from the roguery of English contractors than from the enemy. In the History of the regiment, by Major James Slack, the ladies of West Suffolk, as well as those of Ireland and the Vale

of Grasmere, are mentioned as having endeavoured to supplement the want caused by this iniquity. Their presents were received by the men with hearts too full for utterance. This is indeed a link between the Sixtythird and that part of our county from which it took its name. In 1881, through changes by no means welcome either to officers or men, the Sixty-third lost its number and its county designation, and is now the 1st Battalion, Manchester Regiment."

The improved navigation in the north of the county by the opening up of direct communication between Lowestoft and Norwich originated with an alderman of that city, Crisp Brown, in the earlier years of this century. A cut to the south of Breydon was first proposed, but the opposition of the Yarmouth Corporation to this or any other alteration in waterways only led to the adoption of a cut of two miles and a half from Reedham to the Waveney, the widening and deepening of Oulton Dyke, and the carrying of the canal to Lowestoft by Oulton Broad and Lake Lothing. After much opposition, this scheme was carried out, the Act of Parliament coming into operation July 3, 1827, two months after which date the first spadeful of earth was raised by Alderman Brown.

Railway communication has, of course, much lessened the importance of this enterprise, but railway history still belongs to the memory of the living, and the space devoted to earlier times has proved too much to allow of a sketch of the Great Eastern lines, which as yet have not covered all East Anglia with their network.

IT

CHAPTER XIX.

ETHNOLOGY, SURNAMES, DIALECT, FOLK-LORE.

T would perplex the keenest ethnologist to disentangle the ravelled skein of an ordinary East Anglian pedigree. What Defoe says of the Englishman in general lacks no point when applied to the Suffolker:

'Fate jumbled them together, Heaven knows how.
Whate'er they were, they're true-born English now.'

Something may be discoverable by craniology, trichology, odontology, or siagonology, which is the science of jawbones, not, however, by the present generation. There is a funny little black-haired, high-cheekboned type existing sporadically in different parts of the county, perhaps rather more abundantly at the north-west corner, which has a suggestion of the Celt, or even of an earlier race. Soil, no doubt, has played, and is still playing, its part in modifications of character, colour and contour. The High Suffolker, to my mind, is like his native clay, comparatively slow and unimpressionable, steadfast in likes and dislikes, loves and hates, hard to be convinced and impossible to be coerced, somewhat given to suspicion, capable of great physical endurance and of acts involving painful self-sacrifice. The men on the lighter soils are also in a way similar to their sands, more excitable, with an evanescence of feeling when the exciting cause ceases to operate, superior in alacrity of body and mind, but

more apt to be fickle. The neglect of education in past times has rendered both very liable to be deluded by those who are hardly better informed than themselves, the itinerant apostles of a kind of socialism which, if followed out, would whelm teacher and disciple in a common and undistinguishable ruin. High Predestinarian doctrine, chiefly of the Particular Baptist type, seems to flourish more on the heavy soils, while the sudden conversions of various forms of Methodism have been more frequent on the sands and gravels. This, however, is but a rough estimate. There are many exceptions to the best rules, and these are but tentative.

Surnames will help us somewhat in classification, but we must be very careful as to definite conclusions. Such as we have in common with Wales may be unhesitatingly pronounced to be later importations. A recent theory about the Roman origin of some of our surnames is barely credible, and the names are capable of a much more ready and ignoble derivation than that which would trace their bearers to consuls, prætors and wearers of the imperial purple. To such an extent did one East Anglian ethnologist carry his doctrine, that he spoke of the family of Fabb as descended from the Fabii, tracing to the present day that special quality which made the great Dictator the saviour of his country:

'Unus qui nobis cunctando restituit rem.'

Certain Christian names, female as well as male, are of Roman origin. When an unfortunate child had to be known by his mother's name in consequence of illegitimate birth, this classical name would become his surname, perhaps with 's or son attached to it. In the former case the assumed surname bears a strong, but, as it seems to me, delusive resemblance to the nomen of a Roman gens. We do not find surnames of Roman origin when surnames first crop up in our annals.

The main branches of surnames, local, professional, qualitative, would not be in earlier times of that per

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manence which in these days pertains to them. first the local surname told its own story, and the stranger from down in the shires' appropriately bore the name of the county, town, or village from which he had wandered. But though in many cases these have remained, in many cases they have passed away under the influence of some more potent mark of distinction. Sometimes, too, they merely denote a temporary sojourn in a strange land, the phenomenon of having visited a distant town being quite enough to fix the name of the place on the visitor. Thus, in a Lancashire dale at the beginning of the century there was a man commonly called London George,' being the only parishioner who had visited the Metropolis. So when we find Kent, Wiltshire, Darby, Boston, Lincoln, Bristow, Rye, Dover, Lancaster, etc., there may have been only a short residence in those places, whereas in the case of some less known-Spalding, Brighton, Wing (Rutland), Littlebury, Fosdike, Leverton, Kingsbury—it may be in greater likelihood a case of actual migration from the special parish. There are undoubted importations from the North-Ettridge, which has passed into Etheridge, Elliott, and others. Where a man's occupation did not distinguish him from his fellows, these names and the like would be pretty sure to stick, but their light would pale before the brilliancy of a designation which attributed to a man some special skill or knowledge. John Barton, if there were two or three in a parish, would cease to be the name of one who was of note as a scrivener or a parmenter-that is, a preparer of parchments. Thus, local surnames afford but a feeble and uncertain flicker for our guidance. Before passing from them, we may observe that the surnames corresponding to the names of Suffolk villages are very often found about fifteen or twenty miles from those villages.

There is also a large class of minor local names; that is to say, names from special parts of a village. The names Curzon and Cruso, de Crucione, from a cross-way, are rare in Suffolk, if they exist, the common name Cross being

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