Hopping violence (1860)

Post date: Apr 23, 2014 9:54:56 AM

An 1860 letter from the Rev. Charles William Shepherd is, as at 23 April 2014, advertised for sale through Abe Books at £65. Rev Shepherd was of Trotterscliffe (Trottiscliffe?), of Trinity College, Cambridge, an ornithologist and traveller.

'Trotterscliffe | Saturday.' s?, 1860. 12mo, 8 pp. Two bifoliums. Very good, on lightly-aged paper. Written to a fellow Cambridge man, and beginning with some college chat ('I have got your Pipe it has come at last I will send it down with the Bacca from Cambridge').

A three-page description of the unrest follows, beginning 'It's getting rather queer work walking about here of nights; the hoppers at Wateringbury attacked everything on the road; they met a Peeler whom they owed a grudge to and attacked him, he had expected it and had got a lot of fellows to help him, but some how or other they came upon him by himself, he hadn't any thing with him not even his staff, they had all long sticks, so he took to his legs and ran ready to break his neck'. In the following fracas the policeman kills one of the hoppers.

In Offam the same mob, 'knocking the innocant inhabitants about with hop-poles', are confronted by 'Old Aspernell' and 'a few trusty peelers', and a confused confrontation ensues.