Popular Places of Resort -- Wakes, Statutes, and Fairs -- the Wake, the Feast of the Dedication of the Parish Church, now dwindled into a Village Holiday -- Anticipation of it by the Rural People -- Wake Festivities -- the Wake, in some places yet connected with Church-rites. -- STATUTES: Meetings by Legal Statute for the Hiring of Servants -- Attendance of Farmers, their Wives, and Men and Women Servants -- their Appearance -- Shepherds, Ploughmen, Milkmaids, and their Insignia -- Earnest-Money -- Afternoon Jollification -- in the Northern Counties the Bondage Girls hired at similar Meetings -- FAIRS: Places of both Business and Pleasure to all Classes of Country People -- Nottingham Great October and Goose Fair taken as a specimen -- Preparations for its Attendance -- Fair Scenery and Characters -- Proclamation of the Fair -- Corporation Procession -- Gig Fair -- Peculiar Tastes and Pleasures of Fair-goers -- Good Subjects for the Painter presented 493 CHAPTER X. Popular Places of Resort, _continued_ -- The Rural Watering Place 502 CHAPTER XI. Sports and Pastimes of the People -- History of their Changes and Present State -- Sports generated by the Feudal Habits -- Sports introduced by the Catholic Church -- the mere brutal Portion of both these remaining in the last Century -- many of these now abolished, and a better Class encouraged -- Sports and Pastimes prevalent in Farming Districts and obscure Hamlets -- Prevalence of Cricket -- Description of a Cricket-Match between Nottingham and the Sussex Club -- Auguries drawn from the Present Popular Taste 515 CHAPTER XII. WRESTLING: Its History and present Practice -- this Exercise, formerly so general, now confined to a few Counties -- Cornwall and Devon, Lancashire, Cumberland and Westmoreland -- these Counties possessing Practices peculiar to themselves -- Grand Annual Wrestling in Clerkenwell, formerly attended by the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London -- Curious Anecdote of a Minister of the Society of Friends of that day -- West of England and Westmoreland and Cumberland Clubs in London -- Attempt of Sir Thomas Parkyn to establish Wrestling in Nottinghamshire -- Cornish Wrestling -- Fuller’s Opinion of it -- Account of it by an Eye-witness -- Champions of Cornwall and Devon -- Games established at St. Ives in Cornwall by John Knill -- the Canns of Dartmoor, and Widdicombs of the Moors -- Description of a Match at the Eagle Tavern Green, City Road, in 1826, between Devon and Cornwall 531 CHAPTER XIII.