James Greenwood

“ Part of the programme of the evening, of course, is for the rough to get as drunk as gin and beer can make him; and it is understood that when in that state he has a habit of kicking or attacking with his fists the person who may happen to be nearest him. Ordinarily, it is his "young woman" that he so maltreats, and she having possibly grown too used to it to mind it much, would rather be at his elbow when his brutality sought vent at his knuckles and his iron-tipped boots than that he should practice it on a stranger, and fall into the hands of the police. ”

“ It is a curious fact that the rough has no heart for a holiday outing, unless he is accompanied by his ladylove, though whether this arises from affection on his part, or is merely a friendly and judicious domestic arrangement between them, is uncertain. ”

“ But, at least as regards the youthful and juvenile throng, the Hampstead donkeys are the chief attraction. Quite a "Rotten-row" has been established on the heath, a gravel and railed-in space, with a handsome pump and stone water trough at one end for the refreshment of any thirsty and harassed quadruped who stands in need thereof, with a person in attendance to see that whenever a brute evinces a desire to drink he is not prevented. It is not, that I am aware, anywhere recorded that the donkeys of Hampstead-heath are a peculiarly artful race ”

“ If the lord of the manor of Hampstead has no licence for music and dancing, it would make the fortune of any informer who gave information against him, on the strength of being able to net half the enormous sum his lordship might be mulcted in the shape of penalties. Organ men, not simply in twos, but in gangs of at least half a dozen, may on such occasions be met from breakfast time until noon hurrying to the festive scene, made certain by previous experience of finding plenty of remunerative employment when they get there. ”

“ The agreement is, up the ride - a distance of perhaps fifty yards - and down again for a penny, the time occupied being so brief that the mouth of a donkey well wetted at starting can scarcely get dry in the time, yet there are animals there who at every turn will stop short in their gallop within a few feet of the trough, and at once simulate an appearance of extreme thirst, hanging their heads and gasping in a way that is well calculated to impose on the trough keeper, just for the sake of a short spell of idleness with their noses in the cool water. ”

“ What becomes of the Hampstead donkeys during the winter months - there are several scores of them - is a mystery that will probably be solved when it comes to be settled beyond dispute by what means the same race of animals continues to vanish from off the face of the earth without leaving their carcases behind them as evidence of their demise. ”

“ He does not get on so well in the evening and night time, when his youthful audience has dispersed, and has been replaced by adults of the tag-rag and draggle-tail breed who have no taste for any tunes but those they can vigorously kick up their heels to, and who are apt to quarrel with him on account of his refusal to accept drinks out of their gin and beer bottles as payment in lieu of ready money, and who not unfrequently detain him - a hard-worked and unpaid captive - by the hour together by threats of sequestrating the handle of his instrument. ”

“ As full as any fair, the vast gathering is respectably distinguished from those bygone abominations, Greenwich and Bartle'my, inasmuch as it depends for its existence not on caravans of wild beast shows and sparring and drinking booths, but, for the greater part, on such amusements as the people make for themselves, bringing their own materials or finding them already provided on the ground. ”

“ The inhabitants of the metropolis should be thankful for the recurrence of Hampstead Heath jubilations, if for one reason only - the freedom from the plague of organ-grinders which for one day at least is secured them. ”

“ From their appearance when they are brought to light for the holiday season, it would seem not improbable that ever since the fall of last year they had been shut up somewhere in the dark, without benefit of currycomb or food, excepting such nutriment as might be derived from gnawing the flaps and hay stuffing of their saddles. If donkey driving was always as remunerative as it is on Hampstead-heath on an Easter Monday say, it would be as difficult to procure a license and a badge as a share in the New River Waterworks Company. ”

“ Curiously innocent are most of these pastimes. Skip-rope, for instance, appears to be one of the main staples of the day's enjoyment, with middle-aged as well as young - not skip-rope of the kind where the operator acts with a slender cord for his or her own amusement, but a thirty feet long, substantial scaffold cord, "turned" by able-bodied men, who provide skipping boards and invite any number to "jine in" it at a fee of a halfpenny each, and "keep the pot a bilin'." ”