The Old Showmen and the Old London FairsFrost, Thomas
History
The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs
Frost, Thomas
Fairs -- England -- London; London (England) -- Social life and customs
The only entertainment of which I have found an announcement for this year
is the following:--"At Mr. Saffry's, a Dutch-woman's Booth, over against
the Greyhound Inn, in West Smithfield, during the time of the fair, will
be acted the incomparable Entertainment call'd The Irish Evidence, with
the Humours of Teige. With a Variety of Dances. By the first Newmarket
Company." Further glimpses of the fair are afforded, however, by the offer
of a reward for "the three horses stolen by James Rudderford, a
mountebank, and Jeremiah March, his clown;" and the announcement that,
"The German Woman that danc'd where the Italian Tumbler kept his Booth,
being over against the Swan Tavern, by Hosier Lane end in Bartholomew
Fair, is run away from her Mistress, the Fifth of this instant; She is of
a Brownish complexion, with Brown Hair, and between 17 and 18 years of
Age; if any person whatsoever can bring Tidings to one Mr. Hone's, at the
Duke of Albemarle's Head, at the end of Duck Lane, so that her Mistress
may have her again, they shall be rewarded to their own content."
In the winter of 1683-4, an addition was temporarily made to the London
fairs by the opportunity which the freezing of the Thames afforded for
holding a fair on the ice. The river became frozen on the 23rd of
December, and on the first day of 1684 the ice was so thick between the
bridges that long rows of booths were erected for the sale of refreshments
to the thousands of persons who congregated upon it. Evelyn, who visited
the strange scene more than once, saw "people and tents selling all sort
of wares, as in the City." The frost becoming more intense when it had
endured a month, the sports of horse-racing and bull-baiting were
presented on the ice; and sledges and skaters were seen gliding swiftly in
every direction, with, as Evelyn relates, "puppet-plays and interludes,
tippling, and other lewd places." The ice was so thick that the booths
and stalls remained even when thaw had commenced, but the water soon
rendered it disagreeable to walk upon, and long cracks warned the
purveyors of recreation and refection to retreat to the land. The fair
ended on the 5th of February.
It was during the continuance of this seventeenth century Frost Fair that
Evelyn saw a human salamander, when he dined at Sir Stephen Fox's, and
"after dinner came a fellow who eat live charcoal, glowingly ignited,
quenching them in his mouth, and then champing and swallowing them down.
There was a dog also which seemed to do many rational actions." The last
sentence is rather obscure; the writer probably intended to convey that
the animal performed many actions which seemed rational.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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