Towards The Latter End Of The Fair, And When The Great Hurry Of
Wholesale Business Begins To Be Over, The
Gentry come in from all
parts of the county round; and though they come for their
diversion, yet it is
Not a little money they lay out, which
generally falls to the share of the retailers, such as toy-shops,
goldsmiths, braziers, ironmongers, turners, milliners, mercers,
etc., and some loose coins they reserve for the puppet shows,
drolls, rope-dancers, and such like, of which there is no want,
though not considerable like the rest. The last day of the fair is
the horse-fair, where the whole is closed with both horse and foot
races, to divert the meaner sort of people only, for nothing
considerable is offered of that kind. Thus ends the whole fair,
and in less than a week more, there is scarce any sign left that
there has been such a thing there, except by the heaps of dung and
straw and other rubbish which is left behind, trod into the earth,
and which is as good as a summer's fallow for dunging the land; and
as I have said above, pays the husbandman well for the use of it.
I should have mentioned that here is a court of justice always
open, and held every day in a shed built on purpose in the fair;
this is for keeping the peace, and deciding controversies in
matters deriving from the business of the fair. The magistrates of
the town of Cambridge are judges in this court, as being in their
jurisdiction, or they holding it by special privilege:
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