meetings, and to place every reasonable impediment in the way of
multitudes assembling together: indeed, I had for many years been
of opinion, that fairs were become a great political evil to the
regular shop-keepers, by reason of the packmen, and other travelling
merchants, coming with their wares and under-selling us; so that
both private interest and public principle incited me on to do all
in my power to bring our fair-days into disrepute. It cannot be
told what a world of thought and consideration this cost me before I
lighted on the right method, nor, without a dive into the past times
of antiquity, is it in the power of man to understand the
difficulties of the matter.

Some of our fair-days were remnants of the papistical idolatry, and
instituted of old by the Pope and Cardinals, in order to make an
income from the vice and immorality that was usually rife at the
same. These, in the main points, were only market-days of a blither
kind than the common. The country folks came in dressed in their
best, the schools got the play, and a long rank of sweety-wives and
their stands, covered with the wonted dainties of the occasion,
occupied the sunny side of the High Street; while the shady side
was, in like manner, taken possession of by the packmen, who, in
their booths, made a marvellous display of goods of an inferior
quality, with laces and ribands of all colours, hanging down in
front, and twirling like pinnets in the wind. There was likewise
the allurement of some compendious show of wild beasts; in short, a
swatch of every thing that the art of man has devised for such
occasions, to wile away the bawbee.

Besides the fairs of this sort, that may be said to be of a pious
origin, there were others of a more boisterous kind, that had come