standing on Evesham bridge, saw fallen trees and hay-cocks floating
down the stream. A pollard willow was noticed with a crew of about
twenty land rats, which had found refuge there until the tree itself
was lifted by the rising water and carried down the stream; and a
floating hay-cock supported a man's jacket, his jar of cider, and his
"shuppick." The local word "shuppick," a corruption of "sheaf-pike,"
means a pike used for loading the sheaves of wheat in the harvest
field on to the waggon, and is the "fork" in general use at
hay-making. During another summer flood the whole of the pleasure
ground at Evesham, beside the Avon, was under water several feet deep;
the water poured in at the lower windows of the adjoining hotel, and
the proprietor's casks of beer and cider in the cellars, ready for the
regatta, were lifted from their stands and bumped against walls and
ceilings.

Every parish has its Council in these days, and in country places
almost every other person one meets is a councillor of some sort, and
inclined to be proud of the distinction. These Councils are excellent
safety-valves for parochial malcontents who thus harmlessly let off
superfluous steam which might otherwise ruffle the abiding calm of
peaceful inhabitants, but their powers are really very limited. In a
village in Worcestershire where an approach road crossed a brook by a
ford, during floods the current was sometimes so strong as to
constitute a danger to horses and carts. The village pundits
therefore, in council duly assembled, considered the matter, and after
an extended debate the following resolution was carried unanimously,
"That a notice board be erected on the spot bearing the inscription:
When this board _is covered with water_ it is dangerous to attempt to
cross the ford."