which says “Find no fault with the bridge which carries you over.”  With every disposition to be charitable, that is the only good thing I can say of the old Bridge.  It carried me over, and there was no instance that it ever fell in, but there was always a fear that it would fall, and everybody thought it ought to fall, but it did not, and I mention this because I think our new Bridge is a striking instance of the public spirit of the inhabitants of Peterborough and the neighbourhood in subscribing the cost of one-half of it, and also of the fairness and liberality which the county authorities displayed in meeting the inhabitants in assisting to get a new bridge—a credit to the district—rather than patch up that shabby, ramshackle concern, which, patched from time to time, might have outlived another hundred years, and a suspicion that it would fall, but never actually falling.

We will walk up Bridge Street and take a turn round the outskirts of the town as I knew it years ago.  Going past the toll-bar in Cowgate we come to the building known as Sexton Barns; probably some of you recollect it, a fine old building; it was an object that vanished when the railways were made, because now it is the site of the G.N. Station.  There was a handsome tree near the Crescent, where Peterborough began to stray into the country; the Crescent had been erected four or five years before.  Opposite was the house where Mrs. Cattel lived, and then the house where Dr. Skrimshire lived (now Dr. Keeton’s).  Walking a little further, we came to the Town Mill; very much like the Town Bridge, it had seen better days and, like the Bridge, it had had a history.  It had been the property of the Dean and Chapter, and, without the smallest doubt, it came down to them from the Abbot and Convent, who were the Lords of this district.  These town mills were mills which the largest landowners kept for the accommodation of their tenants, who were thereby provided with the means of grinding their corn at a small cost, but were compelled to use them and pay grist to the millers, and the old law books contain much on the subject.  Its need passed away, the mill got into private hands; it seems to have become worse and worse, and at last it was burnt down, and we know it no more, the very site having been utilised in an exchange of property for the erection of the present King’s School in Park Road.