Fairgrounds

“ Most of the streets of the fair have elegant light arcades on each side, supported in front by cast-iron columns, where purchasers can walk about, well sheltered in all kinds of weather. The stalls are generally very handsome, and in some instances extend from street to street, so as to leave two fronts. They present nothing of the confusion of an ordinary fair; the goods of every kind are as neatly [298] ranged as in the shops of a city. ”

“ After payin' our two fares, a little gate sort o' turned round and let us in to the Columbian World's Fair—that marvellous city of magic; and anon, if not a little before, the Adminstration Buildin' hove up in front of us.
All the descriptions in the World can't give no idee of the wonderful proportions of the buildin's and the charm of the surroundin's. The minute you pass the gate you are overwhelmed with the greatness, charm, and nobility, the impressive, onspeakable aspect of the buildin's. ”

“ Everybody is anxious to get on, and actuated by the common wish to be at the fair, or in the park, as soon as possible.
Pedestrians linger in groups at the roadside, unable to resist the allurements of the stout proprietress of the ‘Jack-in-the-box, three shies a penny,’ or the more splendid offers of the man with three thimbles and a pea on a little round board, who astonishes the bewildered crowd with some such address as, ‘Here’s the sort o’ game to make you laugh seven years arter you’re dead, and turn ev’ry air on your ed gray vith delight! ”

“ If we have an entertainment we import singers and elocutionists, and if we have a fall fair it must be an imitation World's Fair. The lion's skin of city attractions is being stretched out in every direction, and we can see long ears peeping from under every corner of it. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Bartholomew, the first day of the fair in the year 1305, the traders and pleasure-seekers, the friars and the jesters, clothiers, tumblers, walkers upon stilts, hurried across the grass of Smithfield from the side on which the fair was being held, to the Gallows under the Elms, where officers of state and a great concourse of men awaited a most welcome spectacle. ”

“ Opposite to Windsor Street booths have been erected since Friday last, and a fair is kept on the river. Multitudes of people are continually passing and repassing; puppet shows, roundabouts, and all the various amusements of Bartholomew Fair are exhibited. ”

“ So early as the close of the seventeenth century, one hundred and fifty years before the fair was abolished, we find endeavours being made, in emulation of the Puritans, to banish every kind of amusement from Bartholomew Fair, and limit it to the purposes of an annual market. ”

“ I hear folks talkin' about the fair every year, and I laugh to myself and I say, 'You folks don't know what a fair is.' And I set out there on my porch fair week and watch the buggies and wagons goin' by in the mornin' and comin' home at night, and I git right happy, thinkin' about the time when me and Abram and the children used to go over the same road to the fair, but a mighty different sort of fair from what they have nowadays. One thing is, honey, they have the fairs too soon. ”

“ Men who raised horses and cattle took their best specimens to the fair to show them for prizes.
Then there were to be automobile races and horse races, and there were many amusements from the big merry-go-round to the little tents and booths where one could throw baseballs at dolls or toss rings over canes. There were also booths and tents where candy, ice-cream, lemonade and cider were sold, as well as places to eat.
"Oh, it's wonderful!" cried Nan, as she and her brothers, her sister, Harry and her father got out of their automobile and walked through the big gates into the fair grounds. ”

“ Out of a dozen wild schemes broached by as many wild heads of the excited crowd, in which were now lined up for any lawlessness all the idlers, floaters, the improvident, and the reckless elements of a frontier gambling town, one caught the popular fancy. ”

“ Their play-ground is under the dusty, dingy trees of the wide avenues; but they have the same games of romps their peasant mothers brought from their country homes, and above the noise of the passing vehicles we often hear their voices as they dance round in a circle, and sing verses of some old provincial song. ”

“ The delightful locality of the Fair, the bright sunbeams playing upon the many-coloured tents, the joyous laughter of the people, untouched by debauchery, and unseduced by the gross pleasures of the appetite ”

“ Little merry-go-rounds buzzed like tops in cramped corners between pine lemonade stands and cheap shooting-galleries. Looking eastward, the eye rests with satisfaction upon the gilded satin of the Administration dome, and then it may take an observation to the westward of a flaunting placard:
Back of the sandwich counters and fortune-telling booths are stored the World's Fair hotels, looking like overgrown store boxes, with holes punched in them. ”

“ Long before he arrived at the scene of the Fair he found the country scattered with the mares and stallions of the visitors, who had journeyed there before him. As he rode down a rich glade the clang and clash of barbaric music came to his ears, a quaint city rose in [Pg 123] sight, backed by wild and glorious hills. The walls of the city were shaped into a triangle; they bristled with spear and pike-point, standard and pennon. ”

“ For recreation the foreign-born are limited to virtually the same resources as the natives of the working class. The dance hall, the moving picture show, the cheap theater, and the recreation park hold the prominent 300places. For the men of some races the saloon, and for others the imported coffeehouse, furnish a place for meeting and social relaxation. The need of recreational facilities for the working classes, so long neglected in this country, is beginning to be recognized and met in every up-to-date American city. ”

“ In the same way if I cannot see a real world's fair I can enjoy myself thoroughly at an old-fashioned country fair where the exhibits are those of honest people who are trying to excel in their own way. But when we have an entertainment nowadays we must import talent, and when we have a fall fair we must have a midway and circus stunts by hamfatters, who would be hooted in the places [Pg 304] where such performances really belong. ”

“ XIV In almost any big town, around Autumn, you will annually run across that famous agricultural show known as a County Fair; and, as Branton Hills had a big park, which you know all about, right in front of Nancy's and Frank's small bungalow, it was a most natural spot for holding it. And so, as this happy pair's third Autumn got around, stirring activity in that big park also got a-going; for railings for stockyards don't grow all built; yards and yards of brown canvas don't just blow into a park ”

“ In short, when every booth in the fair combined in itself the attractions of all the rest, and so perplexes with its irresistible merit the rapt imagination of the half-holiday school boys who have got but sixpence to spend upon the whole, that they eye the outsides of each in a state of pleasing despair, till their leave of absence is expired twice over, and then return home filled with visions of giants and gingerbread nuts, and dream all night long of what they have not seen. ”

“ Hither must come the patrons of the Street Fair, even now spreading its attractions on the public square to welcome them—not yet a canvas-covered wagon in sight, no horseman, no foot-passenger to tempt the instabilities of the little bridge. ”

“ These fairs often last more than a month, and they are impatiently looked forward to by all the country nobles, whom they enable for a while to breathe as it were the odour of fashionable town life. Balls, theatres, shopping, music, horse races—what a world of pleasures in the compass of a few days! ”

“ But these primitive feasts were the origin of most of our fairs, which are generally held on the dedication festival of the parish church. [13] The neighbours from the adjoining villages used to attend the wakes, so the peddlers and hawkers came to find a market for their wares. Their stalls began to multiply, until at last an immense fair sprang into existence, which owed its origin entirely to the religious festival of "the wakes." Fairs have degenerated like many other good things, and we can hardly realize their vastness in the middle ages. ”

“ The country campaign of the troupe was soon at an end, and we set off for the metropolis, to perform at the fairs which are held in its vicinity. The greater part of our theatrical property was sent on direct, to be in a state of preparation for the opening of the fairs; while a detachment of the company travelled slowly on, foraging among the villages. I was amused with the desultory, hap-hazard kind of life we led; here to-day, and gone to-morrow. Sometimes revelling in ale-houses; sometimes feasting under hedges in the green fields. ”

“ Many such fairs are still held in every county, and they connect the present day very closely with the life of bygone days. It is "all the fun of the fair" which draws people to them mostly nowadays, but in some of them there is still important business done; people are attracted to them for trade as well as for pleasure.
3. Some of these fairs are held in big towns, such as Lincoln and Carlisle. At Barnet a great horse fair is held every year in September. But some big fairs are held away from any large town, [Pg 119] such as the big sheep fair at Weyhill, in Hampshire. ”

“ The Grand Bazaar is both a sight and a town in itself, full of streets, entries, lanes and alleys, covered here and there as an arcade, into which the sun never penetrates. The dim light, the great crowds of strangely costumed people,—veiled women with their children in hand, attended by eunuchs, some chattering, some silent and aloof—but all intent on bargaining and eager for the fray. ”

“ The fair is sometimes called ‘the mop,’ and stalwart girls will walk eight or nine miles rather than miss it. Maidservants in farmhouses always bargain for a holiday on fair day. These two main fairs are the Bank Holidays of rural life. ”

“ Moreover, the trades-folk of the town were obliged to close their shops during the days of the fair, and to bring their goods to the fair, so that the toll-owner might gain good profit withal.
We can imagine, or try to imagine, the roads and streets leading to the market-place thronged with traders and chapmen, the sellers of ribbons and cakes, minstrels and morris-dancers, smock-frocked peasants and sombre-clad monks and friars. Then a horn was sounded, and the lord of the manor, or the bishop's bailiff, or the mayor of the town proclaimed the fair ”

“ Although the Fair was officially known as a World’s Fair, and it did contain honorable contributions from many foreign countries, it was, in a sense that no other exhibition has been before, a nation’s fair. ”

“ The Fair awoke the American sense of beauty. And before its course was run, a group of Chicago business men, some of whom were directors of the exposition, determined to have a plan for the entire city which should so far as possible reflect the lessons of the Fair in the arrangement of streets, parks and plazas, and the grouping of buildings. ”

“ When the fair began, the potter placed all the gipsy’s wares on a stall with his own, and marked them with very high prices, but had he asked three times as much he could have got it, for there were some rich folk from the big houses who came to the fair, and they at once bought them all up, declaring that such pots and jugs they had never seen. ”

“ Here is a nation of ninety million people scouring the earth for a playground; and there is an undiscovered playground in its own back yard, the most wonderful playground of mountain and forest and lake in the whole world; a playground in actual area half the size of a Germany, or France, with wonders of cave and waterway and peak unknown to Germany or France. ”

“ On the outskirts of the city—but not so far away as to be difficult of access—there are large gardens, so called, laid off with walks and shrubbery and fountains, and in the midst are all sorts of spectacular games and plays, combining in one enclosure theatre, circus, gymnastics, music and dancing, concerts, orations, and whatever is usually found scattered in different parts of a city, and to be visited only after paying a fee for each admission. To enter this garden—for one is a type of many—you pay about ten cents, and that gives you the entrée to nearly all the shows. ”

“ That they have some high-fenced grove which they call a park; that they live in larger and better-garnished saloons than he has visited, and go in coaches, keeping only the society of the elegant, to watering-places and to distant cities,—these make the groundwork from which he has delineated estates of romance, compared with which their actual possessions are shanties and paddocks. ”

“ Apart from the racing, the fair has enough attractions to keep a visitor busy for a couple of days at least, and then said visitor would be better satisfied if he could possess himself of an extra set of eyes. ”

“ But it is only necessary to have once seen the joy with which the children of our crowded cities hail the formation of such a playground, and the use to which they put it, to be convinced that the trouble of acquiring it, or the cost of laying it out, is amply repaid. ”