Any Wife better than none.
With Scenes, Machines, and other Decorations proper to the
Entertainment.
_Advertisement in a collection at the British Museum._
GREENWICH FAIR (in 1835-6).
... Imagine yourself in an extremely dense crowd which swings you to
and fro and in and out, and every way but the right one; add to this
the screams of women, the shouts of boys, the clanging of gongs, the
firing of pistols, the ringing of bells, the bellowing of
speaking-trumpets, the squeaking of penny dittoes, the noise of a dozen
bands with three drums in each, all playing different tunes at the same
time, the hallooing of showmen, and an occasional roar from the wild
beast shows; and you are in the very centre and heart of the fair.
This immense booth, with the large stage in front, so brightly
illuminated with variegated lamps and pots of burning fat, is
"Richardson's," where you have a melodrama (with three murders and a
ghost), a pantomime, a comic song, an overture, and some incidental
music, all done in five-and-twenty minutes. The company are now
promenading outside in all the dignity of wigs, spangles, red ochre,
and whitening.... The exhibitions next in popularity to these itinerant
theatres are the travelling menageries, or, to speak more intelligibly,
the "Wild beast shows," where a military band in beef-eater's costume,
with leopardskin caps, play incessantly, and where large highly
coloured representations of tigers tearing men's heads open, and a lion
being burnt with red hot irons to induce him to drop his victim, are
hung up outside, by way of attracting visitors.
... The grandest and most numerously frequented booth in the whole
fair however is "The Crown and Anchor," a temporary ballroom--we
forget how many feet long--the price of admission to which is one
shilling.... The dancing itself beggars description--every figure
lasts about an hour, and the ladies bounce up and down the middle
with a degree of spirit which is quite indescribable. As to the
gentlemen they stamp their feet upon the ground every time "hands
four round" begins, go down the middle and up again with cigars in
their mouths and silk handkerchiefs in their hands, and whirl their
partners round, nothing loth, scrambling and falling and knocking
up against the other couples, until they are fairly tired out and
can move no longer.
Dickens, _Sketches by Boz_.