We are told, on authority, {183} that at one time all kinds of traffic went on within St. Paul’s Cathedral, and its precincts, in London. It was the common lounge of gallants and their female friends; and even a horse might be bought there; and such a transaction actually did take place in St. Mary’s Church, Horncastle. The Vicar had a chestnut mare which he wished to sell. Two dealers at the fair bid for her up to £35, which he refused to take. Sitting together at breakfast on the Sunday morning at their inn, Brown said to Robinson, “I bet you a bottle of wine I buy that mare of the Vicar’s.” “Done,” said Robinson. They both went to church, which was more than many dealers do nowadays. Brown took his seat just under the pulpit. Robinson, not knowing this, sat near the porch, intending to intercept the Vicar as he went out. The sermon ended, Brown waited till the Vicar descended from the pulpit; as he reached the bottom step of the stairs, Brown went to him and said, “That was a good sermon, but your reverence has not yet sold that mare; the fair is over, and I am leaving in the afternoon. Won’t you take the £35? You’ll never get a better bid.” The Vicar thought for a moment, and then whispered, “You may have her.” He went out, was met in the porch by Robinson, who found that he was too late, and owed Brown a bottle of wine; his only consolation was that he resolved himself to drink the better half of it. At these fairs good bargains may be made by one who has an eye to the points of a horse, and can use his opportunities. The writer knew a curate in the south-west of Lincolnshire, whose stipend was £50 a year. He came regularly every year, for many years, to the August fair. His first purchase was a young horse, for which be gave the whole of his year’s stipend, £50. He kept it a year, and hunted it. I have ridden with him, when mounted on that horse, with the Belvoir hounds, and the next year he sold it for £300, a pretty good percentage on the original outlay. A cousin of the writer picked out a young horse from a number and gave £24 for it; he afterwards refused to take £300 for it, offered by “Lord Henry”; but he lent it to his lordship occasionally. Another, which he bought cheap, and for which he refused £400, broke its leg in jumping the river Bain, in a Horncastle steeplechase and had to be shot on the spot. Both these horses I have ridden to hounds, the one a bay, the other black.