polished blocks of red granite, resting upon a base of white granite. Inscriptions are engraved on each side as follows. On the west side: BY BISHOP BONNER, IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN MARY, NEAR THIS SPOT, MARCH XXVI MDLV. HE YIELDED UP HIS LIFE FOR THE TRUTH SEALING IT WITH HIS BLOOD TO THE PRAISE OF GOD ERECTED BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION 1861. On the east side : WILLIAM HUNTER MARTYR COMMITTED TO THE FLAMES MARCH XXVI MDLV CHRISTIAN READER, LEARN FROM HIS EXAMPLE AN OPEN BIBLE AND BE CAREFUL TO MAINTAIN IT. 66 HE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH," On the south side : HE WAS TORTURED, NOT ACCEPTING DELIVERANCE THAT HE MIGHT OBTAIN A BETTER RESURRECTION. On the north side : BE THOU FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH AND I WILL GIVE THEE A CROWN OF LIFE. Turning now down the road to the right, along which Queen Elizabeth is said to have ridden to Tilbury, we observe the remnants of a famous old tree, nearly 20ft. in circumference, the outer portion of the trunk of which alone remains. Pains have been taken to prevent the disappearance of this tree, for the bricklayer has used his art to supplement nature. Its crumbling walls are supported by brickwork built within, presenting a strange sight indeed. Around the tree an iron palisading has been erected, further to aid in the preservation of so interesting a relic, for tradition holds that this was the "stake to which the youthful martyr was bound. At any rate, it is the nearest spot which can be marked as the place where the tragedy was enacted. On one side of this very road, immediately behind the "martyr's tree," stands the Grammar School, which owes its foundation and endowment to the same Sir Anthony Browne who but two years before its foundation had sought this lad's destruction. Mark the irony of fate! On the opposite side of the road stands a Roman Catholic Church! Fairlop Fair. BY JOHN W. ODLING. O see the East-End leading thoroughfares on the evening of the first Friday in July, is to behold one of the "sights of London." To look down from a window, or from the 'vantage ground of the knife-board of an omnibus, or the top of a tramcar, upon the sea of human faces in the Mile End Road, is to have imprinted upon the mind scenes which cannot quickly be effaced. But the crowds which congregate now-a-days on that particular night of the year are small in comparison with the thronging multitudes which, in former years, issued forth from slum, from alley, and from by-way to welcome the return of the Fairlop Boat. And this, in spite of the frequent occasions on which the elements were unpropitious. For has it not passed into a proverb that “on Fairlop Friday it will be sure to rain, if only nine drops." Of course a special contingent of police was drafted into the neighbourhood, but even then it was difficult to control the surging masses. "What does it all mean?" asks one. 66 Have you never heard of Fairlop Fair!" "Yes, I have heard of it times without number, and I have seen the procession of late years on its homeward journey, but I never could get at the significance of the affair." 66 'Ah, it is only a relic now; yet it is a link in the chain of history, uniting the present to the days of yore." And not a few desire to maintain the customs of the good old times, albeit present-day necessities do not demand them. Time was when Fairlop was a word to conjure with. Who in Essex that had not heard of it, for visitors, great and small, patronized it in their thousands once a year. But though Fairs might be wanted when wise King Alfred reigned, the day has come and gone when they are needed, for civilization has been spreading, and commerce has made rapid strides, even faster than have the centuries! So once famous FAIRLOP FAIR is but a memory with the aged—a record on history's page. An oak tree, venerable for antiquity, unique |