Some Jersey Churches
WHILE a blue-bonneted Biscayan Frenchman was peddling onions through the streets of St. Heliers, a little mob of children followed hooting him in French (with delightful irony), for being a Frenchman. Though there is nothing a Jerseyman more detests than being called a Frenchman, and nothing upon which he prides himself more than the Battle of Jersey at which in 1781 twelve hundred invading French were beaten into surrender in the streets of St. Heliers by the Jersey Militia and some companies of a Highland- regiment, yet French the Jerseyman is; and so is his language and so is his country. In the fine old sturdy town-church of St. Heliers the morning service is always in French ; the potato-planting peasant of the outlying hamlets speaks (sometimes) nothing but the broadest of patois.

