Here were, first of all, crowds against other crowds driving
Like wind and tide meeting, each contrary striving;
Shrill fiddling, sharp fighting, and shouting and shrieking,
Fifes, trumpets, drums, bagpipes, and barrow girls squeaking--
“Come my rare round and sound, here’s choice of fine ware!”
Though all was not sound sold at Bartelmew Fair.
Here were drolls, hornpipe-dancing, and showing of postures,
With frying black puddings, and opening of oysters;
With salt-boxes, solos, and galley folks squalling,
The tap-house guests roaring, and mouth-pieces bawling.
Here’s “Punch’s whole play of the gunpowder plot,”
“Wild beasts all alive,” and “peas pudding all hot.”
“Fine sausages” fried, and “the Black on the wire,”
“The whole court of France,” and “nice pig at the fire.”
Here’s the up-and-downs, “who’ll take a seat in the chair?”
Tho’ there’s more up-and-downs than at Bartelmew Fair.
Here’s “Whittington’s cat,” and “the tall dromedary,”
“The chaise without horses,” and “queen of Hungary.”
Here’s the merry-go-rounds, “Come who rides, come who rides, sir,”
Wine, beer, ale, and cakes, fire eating besides, sir,
The fam’d “learned dog,” that can tell all his letters,
And some _men_, as _scholars_, are not much his betters.
* * * * *
Before the commencement of the last century, Bartholomew Fair had become
an intolerable nuisance, and the lord mayor and aldermen, to abate its
depravity, issued a prohibition on the 25th of June, 1700, against its
lotteries and interludes. Subsequent feints of resistance were made to
its shows, music, and other exhibitions, without further advantage than
occasional cessation of gross violations against the public peace.
In sir Samuel Fludyer’s mayoralty, interludes were prohibited by a
resolution of the court of aldermen. This resolution has been annually
put forth, and annually broken by the court itself. When alderman Bull
filled the civic chair, he determined to carry the resolution into
effect, and so far accomplished his purpose as not to allow any booths
to be erected; but want of firmness in his predecessors had inspirited
the mob, and they broke the windows of the houses in Smithfield.
Alderman Sawbridge in his mayoralty was equally determined against
shows, and the mob was equally determined for them; he persisted, and
they committed similar excesses. Yet we find that in the year 1743, the
resolution had been complied with. The city would not permit booths to
be erected, and “the Fair terminated in a more peaceable manner than it
had done in the memory of man.”[294] This quiet, however, was only
temporary, for on the 23rd of August, 1749, a gallery in Phillips’s
booth broke down, and four persons were killed; a silversmith, a
plasterer, a woman, and a child, and many others were dangerously
bruised; one of the maimed had his leg cut off the next morning.[295]
This accident seems to have aroused the citizens: on the 10th of July,
1750, a petition was presented to the lord mayor and court of aldermen,
signed by above one hundred graziers, salesmen, and inhabitants in and
near Smithfield, against erecting booths for exhibiting shows and
entertainments there, during Bartholomew Fair, as not only annoying to
them in their callings, but as giving the profligate and abandoned
opportunity to debauch the innocent, defraud the unwary, and endanger
the public peace.[296]
On the 17th of July, 1798, the court of common council referred it to
the committee of city lands, to consider the necessity and expediency of
abolishing Bartholomew Fair: in the course of the previous debate it was
proposed to shorten the period to one day, but this was objected to on
the ground that the immense crowd from all parts of the metropolis would
endanger life.[297]
In September, 1825, Mr. Alderman Joshua Jonathan Smith, previous to
entering on an examination of forty-five prisoners charged with
felonies, misdemeanours, assaults, &c. committed in Smithfield during
the Fair of that year, stated, that its ancient limits had been extended
into several adjoining streets beyond Smithfield; he said he had
particularly noticed this infringement in St. John-street, Clerkenwell
on the north side, and nearly half-way down the Old Bailey, on the
south; and he was determined, with the aid of his coadjutors, to take
such further steps as would in future “lessen the criminal extension
which had arisen, if not abolish the degrading scene altogether.”[298]
At other periods besides these, there were loud complaints against
Bartholomew Fair; and as in 1825, the corporation of London appears
seriously to have been engaged in considering the nuisance, its end may
be contemplated as near at hand. It is to the credit of the civic
authorities, that though shows and interludes were permitted, the Fair
of that year was more orderly than any other within memory. Yet even
these regulations are inefficient to the maintenance of the reputation
the city ought to hold in the estimation of other corporations. The Fair
was instituted for the sale of cloth, cattle, and other necessary
commodities: as these have, for many years past, wholly disappeared from
it, the _use_ of the Fair has wholly ceased; its _abuse_ alone remains,
and that abuse can only be destroyed by the utter extinction of the
Fair. To do this is not to “interfere with the amusements of the
people,” for the people of the metropolis do not require such
amusements; they are beyond the power of deriving recreation from them.
The well-being of their apprentices and servants, and the young and the
illiterate, require protection from the vicious contamination of an
annual scene of debauchery, which contributes nothing to the city funds,
and nothing to the city’s character but a shameful stain.
* * * * *
Bartholomew Fair must and will be put down. It is for this reason that
so much has been said of its former and present state. No person of
respectability now visits it, but as a curious spectator of an annual
congregation of ignorance and depravity.
* * * * *