Everything here was in evidence of the Derby proper. All the gentlemen’s houses had stands erected inside the front gardens, and the walls decorated with festoons of scarlet, most of them making it quite a gala day having dinner parties to see the visitors in their grand equipages, for the turn-outs of the aristocracy and royalty surpassed everything to be seen anywhere in Europe. All the shops and private houses had their windows decorated and full of visitors. It was reported that thirty thousand horses at that time went to Epsom on the Derby Day along the road at this point. The wayfarers to the Derby were mostly horsey-looking tramps with pails on their shoulders in twos and threes, very shabby and down-at-heel. Both men and women, with almost every toy or trinket you could mention; tin trumpets, squeakers, masks to sell on the road, came slouching along; then came barrows, trucks, donkey and pony carts, with all sorts of eatables, such as sheep’s trotters, whelks, oysters, bread and cheese, fried sausages, saveloys, fish, ham and beef sandwiches, ginger beer and table beer—at that time it was allowed to be sold without a license. They would stroll along the road till they found a suitable pitch, and would there establish themselves. There were numerous parties of musicians in gangs of three or four, harp, violin and cornet, or cornet, trombone and French horn; armies of acrobats and children on stilts, conjuring, Punch and Judy shows; in fact, some on every open space all down the road to the Downs.