rhood who, when about to
visit London for the first time, was asked what she expected to find,
replied, "Well, I can't exactly tell, but I suppose something like the
more bustling part of Ditchling." A kindred story is told of a Sussex
man who, finding himself in London for the first time, exclaimed with
astonishment--"What a queer large place! Why, it ain't like Newick and
it ain't like Chailey."

[Illustration: _Old House at Ditchling._]

On Ditchling Common are the protected remains of a stake known as
Jacob's Post. A stranger requested to supply this piece of wood with the
origin of its label would probably adventure long before hitting upon
the right tack; for Jacob, whose name has in this familiar connection a
popular and almost an endearing sound, was Jacob Harris, a Jew pedlar of
astonishing turpitude, who, after murdering three persons at an inn on
Ditchling Common and plundering their house, was hanged at Horsham in
the year 1734, and afterwards suspended, as a lesson, to the gibbet, of
which this post--Jacob's Post--is the surviving relic.

[Sidenote: A CURE FOR TOOTHACHE]

All gibbets, it is said, are "good" for something, and a piece of
Jacob's Post carried on the person is sovran against toothache. A Sussex
archaeologist tells of an old lady, a resident on Ditchling Common for
more than eighty years, whose belief in the Post was so sound that her
pocket contained a splinter of it long after all her teeth had departed.

[Sidenote: JOHN BURGESS'S DIARY]

From extracts from the diary of Mr. John Burgess, tailor, sexton and
Particular Baptist, of Ditchling, which are given in the Sussex
Archaeological Collections, I quote here and there:--

"August 1st, 1785. There was a cricket match at Lingfield Common
between Lingfield in Surrey and all the county of Sussex, supposed
to be upwards of 2,000 people.

"June 29th, 1786. Went to Lewes with some wool to Mr. Chatfield,
fine wool at 8-5-0 per pack. Went to dinner with Mr. Chatfield. Had
boiled Beef, Leg of Lamb and plum Pudden. Stopped there all the
afternoon. Mr. Pullin was there; Mr. Trimby and the Curyer, &c., was
there. We had a good deal of religious conversation, particularly
Mr. Trimby.

"June 11th, 1787. Spent 3 or 4 hours with some friends in
Conversation upon Moral and religious Subjects; the inquiry was the
most easy and natural evedences of ye existence and attributes of ye
supream Being--in