Nasby in Exile: or, Six Months of Travel in England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium, with many things not of travel — John Locke — John Shaqi
Nasby in Exile: or, Six Months of Travel in England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium, with many things not of travel
John Locke · en
One peculiarity of the event was the absence of fighting. During the
entire day I did not see a fight or anything that approached it. Gather
three hundred thousand people together in one field in America, and fill
them with our whisky, or even beer, and there would be processions of
broken heads, and funerals in plenty the next day. There is no question
as to the Englishman's fighting qualities, but he does not fight on his
holidays. There were "d--n his eyes," in plenty, and any quantity of
talk, but no actual combats, except the boxing matches, and they were
all in good humor. Why? I can't tell. Possibly it is because the beer
they drink tends to peace, and possibly it is because they find vent for
their combativeness in whipping their wives at home. But they don't
fight on race courses.
The mass commenced melting away at about four o'clock in the afternoon,
and the grounds were entirely deserted, except by the showmen and those
who have money to make during the entire racing season. They live in
their tents.
The scene on the road back was slightly different from the morning. The
people on the way out started to get drunk, and a vast majority
succeeded. The road was lined with prostrate forms of men and women. The
English women of the lower order drink as much as their husbands and
brothers. You see them in the public houses standing at the bars with
their husbands or lovers, pouring down huge measures of beer, and it is
a toss which can drink the most, or which enjoys it the most keenly. It
is certain that the woman gets drunk with more facility than the man,
she being the weaker, if not the smaller vessel. And understand, these
women are not disreputable; they are hard working wives and daughters of
respectable laboring people, mechanics and the like. It is their notion
of a day's pleasure.
Possibly they are not to be blamed. The life of a London workingman or
woman is not a pleasant one; their pay is very small, and beer is very
cheap, and for the time they are happy.
But the next morning! Dickens and all other English writers, have given
most charming descriptions of the delights of a night's drinking, but
why, oh why, have none of them ever described the repentance of the next
morning? That would have done the world some good.
And so we rode on through masses of people, two-thirds of them at that
stage of intoxication where the idea of enjoyment is noise and
horse-play, shouting, cheering, singing, yelling, waving handkerchiefs,
and all without the faintest idea of the object of either, till we
struck the lights of the city. Then the masses separated, and we finally
reached our homes, tired, half-pleased and half-disgusted. The Derby was
over.