There is a great deal of practical democracy in these gatherings if the grand people stay into the time of the second prices; which however, they generally do not. If they do, then ragged coats jostle the squire's glossy broadcloth, and rude boys crumple the fresh silks and muslins of the ladies with the most communistic unconcern. The shopgirl and farmer's daughters come out in gorgeous array, with bonnets and skirts, streamers and furbelows, of wonderful construction; and their sisters of more cultivated taste regard their exaggerated toilets as moral crimes. But the poor things are happy in their ugly finery; and, as millinery is by no means an exact science, they may be pardoned if they adopt monstrosities on their own account which a year or so ago had been sanctioned by fashion. Sometimes Punch and Judy, 'as performed before the Queen and Prince Albert,' helps on the enjoyment of the day, with the '----' softened out of respect for the clergyman. Sometimes an acrobat lies down on the grass and twirls a huge ball between his feet, which sets all the little boys to do the like in imitation, and perhaps brings down many a maternal hand on fleshy places as the result. In some localities a troop of little girls in scarlet and white plait ribbons dance round a maypole and are called inappropriately morris-dancers. Perhaps there are fireworks at the end of all things; when the set pieces will not light simultaneously in all their parts, the catherine-wheels have the disastrous trick of sticking, and only the Roman candles and the rockets succeed as they should. But the gaping crowd is vociferous and good-natured, and holds the whole affair to have been splendid. There is a great deal of coarse jollity among the men and women over the failures and successes alike, and if the fête is in the North there is sure to be more drink afloat than is desirable. Headaches are the rule of the next morning, with perhaps some things lost which can never be regained. Yet, in spite of the inevitable abuses, these local fêtes are things worthy of encouragement; and perhaps if the great people would enter into them more heartily, and remain on the ground longer, the lower orders would behave themselves better all through, and there would not be so much rowdyism at the end. It does not seem to us that this would be an unendurable sacrifice of time and personal dignity for the pleasure and morality of the neighbourhood where one lives. THE END. S. & H. _Spottiswoode & Co., Printers, New-street Square, London._ RICHARD BENTLEY & SON'S LIST OF ANNOUNCEMENTS _FOR THE NEW SEASON_. I. BY THE CROWN PRINCE OF AUSTRIA. TRAVELS in the EAST: including a Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, the Ionian Islands, &c. By HIS IMPERIAL AND ROYAL HIGHNESS THE CROWN PRINCE RUDOLPH. In royal 8vo. With Portrait and numerous Illustrations. II. BY R. P. A. KENNARD.