ve eaten Dorking snails. They were large, white
snails, which some said were brought to the Downs by the pilgrims,
others thought were introduced from Italy by the Earl of Arundel, Lord
Marshal of England; Lady Arundel used to cook and eat them. They roamed
the Downs by Box Hill and other chalky places, and are still to be found
there. Perhaps the Romans brought them, but they are not peculiar to
Surrey and Sussex; I have found them on chalk in Hertfordshire, and I
have heard of them on the Cotswolds.

Such good fare should have built up the constitutions of Dorking people.
But it was not so in Aubrey's time, for he picks out the Dorking men and
women as weaker and paler than others. He liked to see women with rosy
faces:--

"Handsome women (viz. sanguine) as in Berks, Oxon, Somerset, &c. are
rare at this market; they have a mealy complexion, and something
hail like the French Picards; light grey eyed, and the kine
hereabout are of sandy colour, like those in Picardy. None
(especially those above the hill) have roses in their cheeks. The
men and women are not so strong or of so warm a complexion as in
Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, &c."

[Illustration: _The White Horse, Dorking._]

One, at least, of the old customs of the town survived until very recent
memory. Now it has died out with the rest. From Mr. J.S. Bright's
_History of Dorking_ I learn that the office of constable has lapsed;
the places of the 'Beggar-poker' and the 'Ale Taster' have been taken by
the local police. Parish funds are no longer dispensed at the close of
church service. The poor on St. Thomas's Day used to go out 'Gooding';
to-day they plead no more. The Ditchling Singers, which were the Dorking
Waits, no longer keep Christmas. On the 29th of May, sacred to King
Charles II of blessed memory, an oak bough used to hang from the church
tower; the tower is bare throughout the year. Guy Fawkes has been burned
for the last time; the Jack in the Green dances no longer in cowslips
and buttercups on the first of May. One ancient rite alone persisted
until the other day. Every Shrove Tuesday, in dim remembrance of the
great carnival which in ancient, pre-Reformation days, preceded the
rigours of Lent, mummers made the circuit of the town. In the afternoon
all the shops were shut and boarded up, and a game of football, started
at the church gates, rioted up and down the main street. In the
_Southern Weekly News_,