A new Race of Showmen--Yeates, the Conjuror--The Turkish Rope-Walker--Pan and the Oronutu Savage--The Corsican Fairy--Perry's Menagerie--The Riobiscay and the Double Cow--A Mermaid at the Fairs--Garrick at Bartholomew Fair--Yates's Theatrical Booth--Dwarfs and Giants--The Female Samson--Riots at Bartholomew Fair--Ballard's Animal Comedians--Evans, the Wire-Walker--Southwark Fair--Wax-work Show--Shuter, the Comedian--Bisset, the Animal Trainer--Powell, the Fire-Eater--Roger Smith, the Bell-Player--Suppression of Southwark Fair. The limitation of Bartholomew Fair to three days, and the interdiction of theatrical booths in two successive years, was a serious blow, regarding the matter from the professional point of view, to the interests of the fair. Though actors worked hard during the twelve or eighteen days of the fair, they earned higher salaries during that time than they would have received at the theatres, and looked forward to Bartholomew-tide as the labourer to harvest. Though the theatres remained open during the fair when theatrical booths and puppet-shows were interdicted by the Court of Aldermen, actors missed their extra earnings, and managers found their receipts considerably diminished. In these we have only a passing interest; but the glory of the fairs began to wane when the great actors ceased to appear on the boards of the canvas theatres, for the nobility and gentry withdrew their patronage when the luminaries of Drury Lane and Covent Garden were no longer to be seen, and fairs began to be voted low by persons of rank and fashion. The removal of the interdict on theatrical booths had little or no effect in arresting the progress of the decadence which had commenced; for the three days to which Bartholomew Fair remained limited did not afford to actors engaged at the London theatres, opportunities for earning money sufficient to induce them to set up a portable theatre, which, except for Southwark Fair, they could not use again until the following year. The case was very different when the fair lasted two or three weeks, and the theatres were closed during the time; but when its duration was contracted to three days, the attendance of a theatrical company could be made remunerative only for inferior _artistes_ who strolled all through the year from one fair to another.