The display of merchandize and the conflux of customers at these principal and only emporia of domestic commerce were prodigious, and they were, therefore, often held on open and extensive plains. It appears from a curious record containing the establishment and expenses of the Earl of Northumberland in the year 1512, that the stores of his lordship’s house at Wressle, for the whole year were laid in from fairs; “He that stands charged with my lord’s house for the whole year, if he may possible, shall be at all fairs, where the gross emptions (that is the principal articles) shall be bought for the house for the whole year, as wine, wax, beeves, muttons, wheat and malt.” This quotation is a proof that fairs were at that time the principal marts for purchasing necessaries in large quantities, which now are supplied by trading towns, and the mention of buying beeves and muttons, (oxen and sheep) shews that at so late a period they knew but little of breeding cattle. The great increase of shops in the retail trade in all the towns and villages through the kingdom since the commencement of the eighteenth century, by means of which the inhabitants are supplied with every article necessary for subsistence as well as for luxury, has in a great measure rendered useless the purposes for which fairs were originally established. This change in the domestic trade of the country may be attributed partly to the facility of payment given by the notes of the bank of England and inland bills of exchange, and partly to the more speedy and certain intercourse which has been produced by the regularity of the post office. The latter may be looked upon as the cause and the former the effect of this change which has so completely altered the state of fairs throughout the kingdom. Connected with fairs as furnishing the necessaries of life may be given an account of the living of the people in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. From the household book of the Earl of Northumberland above-mentioned it appears, that his family, during winter, lived mostly on salted meat and salt fish, and on that account there was an order for providing 180 gallons of mustard. On flesh days through the year, breakfast for the earl and his lady was a loaf of bread, two manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of wine, half a chine of mutton, or a chine of beef boiled. On meagre days, a loaf of bread, two manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of wine, a dish of butter, a piece of salt fish, or a dish of buttered eggs. During Lent, a loaf of bread, two manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of wine, two pieces of salt fish, six baconed herrings, or a dish of sprats. The other meals had as little variety, except on festival days. At that time capons, chickens, hens, pigeons, rabbits, plovers, woodcocks, quails, snipes, partridges, and pheasants, were accounted such delicacies as to be prohibited except at the earl’s table.