Manners & Cvstoms of ye Englyshe: Drawn from ye QvickDoyle, Richard
General
Manners & Cvstoms of ye Englyshe: Drawn from ye Qvick
Doyle, Richard
Caricatures and cartoons -- Great Britain; England -- Social life and customs -- Pictorial works
Dancing-Booth, which lighted up and hung with variegated Lamps, was, to
be sure, a pretty fine Sight. But the Company uproarious through Drink;
and yet the Dancing without Liveliness, being mostly that rogueish
Chin-and-Shoulder French Dance, gone heavily through. Here again that
perpetual Scraping, and they who sold the Scrapers, did cry, "All the
Fun of the Fair for 2d."; which was true. Home by the Railway Train,
wherein the tipsy Passengers bawling and singing the whole of the Way.
Methinks these Fairs do cause a Concourse of Rogues and bad Characters;
and the more good cheap Concerts abound, and Museums and Exhibitions are
opened to the Public, the less will the People frequent such Places as
Greenwich Fair.
[Illustration: _KENSYNGTON GARDENS WITH YE BANDE PLAYINGE THERE._
FRIDAY, _June 1, 1849_.]
In the Afternoon to Kensington Gardens, where a Band of the Guards do
play on this Day, and also on Monday throughout the Season, and draw
together a great Crowd of Fashionable Folks. The Tunes played mostly
Polkas and Waltzes, though now and then a Piece of Musique of a better
Sort; but the Musique little more than an Excuse for a Number of People
assembling to see and be seen. There all the World and his Wife; and she
in all her Finery. The Day very fair, and the Sun shining gloriously,
and the bright coloured Silks and Muslins at a Distance between the
Trees, did make a mighty pleasant Picture. But I got as near as I could
to gaze upon the Beauties, and am afraid that I did look too hard at
some; but they mostly smiled, and methinks they do not trick themselves
out so bravely to discourage Observation. To see them pacing to and fro
in such smart Attire, with their shewy pink, and green, and
Forget-me-not Blue Parasols, I could fancy they were the London
Fashions for June come out a walking. But many on Seats with tall
well-looking Gallants posted beside them, or bending down to converse
with them with vast Attention and Politeness, whereat they seeming
mightily pleased. Others standing in Groups here and there under the
Shade, and a great Throng of them round about the Musicians; but all
walking to and fro between the Tunes to show themselves. Many of the
Army among the Crowd, and strange, to compare them and others of our
Gentry, in Air and Manner, with one or two dingy Foreigners with their
stubbly Beards and ill-favoured Looks. The little fashionable Children
by the side of their Mammas elegant enough to see; but overdressed in
their Velvet and Plaid Tunics and Plumes of Feathers, and their Ways too
mincing and dainty, and looking as though they had stepped from out a
Band-Box. Methinks they do seem brought up to think too much of their
Outsides, and to look on Display and Show as the Business of their
Lives, which is a silly Schooling. I did mark some of their Mothers, old
enough to know better, bedizened like the young Beauties, but looking
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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