JEMMY ROPER WOUNDED.
It was the custom some fifty years ago for people connected with- the " contraband trade" to assemble in small parties of ten or twelve on the east and west hills on a summer's evening, for the purpose of regaling themselves with " brandy and milk," and enjoying a pipe therewith. So common was this practice that it was thought nothing of by people in general. Indeed, the merchants on the other side of the Channel not unfrequently " threw in" an extra half-keg of spirits for the express purpose. Towns people passing for a walk were, if known, invited to " take a glass," as was indeed once the case when my father, after his day's work, was about taking " his boys " for a stroll in the fields.
On an occasion of this kind, the person whose name appears at the head of this article, and who had formerly been a " free-trader," was, with a few friends, regaling himself on the West Hill in this manner. Among the party was one whom I formerly knew very well, and another who is still living, and from whom I have had some particulars which I had forgotten.
To diverge for a moment from the main incident in this affair, I find the following over-drawn portrait of the principal person therein, given as follows in " The Battle and the Breeze," a periodical published some time afterwards. The writer, an officer in the Coast-
