“When the rain ceased, the fair-going gentry crept from their canvas
coverings, and made for the spot where the clown’s gibes and jeers were
wont to set his auditors in a roar. But the rain had made the ground so
wet and sloppy, that a melancholy seemed to have come over all, the
clown included. As for the poor boats on the Serpentine, they clung to
the shore, as if they had taken a dislike to an aquatic life, and few
were there disposed to navigate them. The gipsy tribe, of which there
were hundreds in the fair, crept to their blanket hovels, to bewail the
loss of the silver crossings of which the previous day had furnished an
abundant supply. Into one of these miserable cabins upwards of thirty
were seen to go in the space of an hour, whose appearance and manners
would denote that they should know better than to put faith in the trash
of the walnut-dyed impostors.”
The day afterwards turned out fine, and the fair was crowded. On the
third day a booth caught fire, but no great damage was done. On the
fourth and last day, the Queen drove as close to it as she well could
do, and all the booths were cleared away that night.
Shirley Hibberd, writing in _Notes and Queries_ (7s. vi. 105), says:
“The many interesting papers that have of late appeared recalling scenes
and incidents of the Queen’s Coronation, are (so far as I have seen)
defective in making no mention of the morris-dancers in Hyde Park. My
recollections of the event have been delightfully revived by recent
readings, and once more the joyous celebration is before me. I see the
park a dusty field, with not a blade of grass upon it, and I hear my
father say, in accordance with the belief prevailing, that the grass
would grow all the better for being thus destroyed. And, amongst the
things that then surprised me, were the morris-dancers, that I had read
of, and had never, till then, seen. There could be no mistake, I should
now say, about their genuineness, for they were clad as peasants, and
all their ways consorted with their new and nicely trimmed smocks, and
their well tanned faces. The dancers had, at least, two distinct styles,
which I now conjecture were representative of two far-removed
provinces, for the two styles were accompanied with distinctive
habiliments. In each case the music consisted of pipe and tabor. One set
struck short staves at a certain turn in the dance, when the dancers
stood in two ranks face to face. The other set struck white
handkerchiefs, which were thrown out by a trick of the hand so as to
acquire momentary rigidity.”
The police charges from Hyde Park on Coronation Day seem to have
consisted of small gamblers and thimble-riggers, and the following is
given as an example.
“MARYLEBONE.[35] Three men and one woman, who gave their names _John
Scullie_, _Edward Clegg_, _Lewis Joseph_, and _Ellen Taylor_, were
brought before the magistrates, charged with having been found gambling
in Hyde Park, in the thickest of the fair.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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