DROWNED CITY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13352, 9 April 1914, Page 4

DROWNED CITY.

tIOMANCE OF IRON CHEST.

WHIPPINGS OF $0(1 TIES AND . . ... WENCHES. ' , « LONDON, Feb. 9. A strangely romantic interest attaches to •- certain records of t - the old; town of Dunwich which Have been examined for the first time,. siul .summarised m the seventh volume' of the 'Historical Manu script's Commission's report on ManuI scripts m Various Collections.. ' ' | Dun widh has .perished before the incursions of tbe North- Sea till to-day only one ruined church of the seven which it once possessed rte-riains. j But its old registers, beginning m 1595, have been preserved "m a massi\;e, I curiously painted iron chest, of which ! the ponderous lid, when let dojvn, automatically closes the : four bolts' of a lock, of which the ljey can only be turned With the help of an iron bar." The 1 chest •• is traditionally, believed to have been washed up on Dunwich beach from, some ■ wrecked vessel , and is now kept m the village reading-room. In 1596 four fishermen ..were sharply fined for goin^ to sea on Siuiday "contrary to the laws of God and of this realm." Evdry householder '" was cbin^ belled to send some member of his family to church twice- oir 'Week days ; the 'bell Was rung at four and eight m. St. -Peter's } . Church, which has Jong--ince vanished under the sea. Even ih thoso times the North Sea was a stern foe. In v.604 a general ap peal was /made to all the- parish churches of England . "for Snaking the .haven... In 1609 ''it pleased God by force' of tlife , water to take from the' towii the nvas at. The soiith 'end leading to the seaside; so- as the King and inhabitants and, others cab have no passago" ; and six years later the "chcnnell" is soe decayed that -noo passage can ahnoeste be had." Ther^. are many entries of payments for whippings of "rogues," ''wenches," and "wandringe people," while On occasions such persons were first whipped j and then given money — apparently to £0 away. V . Y-f t