They can remember the "machine riots," and tumultuous
scenes at election times, and scores of interesting facts, if only you
can get them to talk and tell you their recollections. The changed
condition of education puzzles them. They can most of them read, and
perhaps write a little, but they prefer to make their mark and get you
to attest it with the formula, "the mark of J----N." Their schooling
was soon over. When they were nine years of age they were ploughboys,
and had a rough time with a cantankerous ploughman who often used to
ply his whip on his lad or on his horses quite indiscriminately. They
have seen many changes, and do not always "hold with" modern notions;
and one of the greatest changes they have seen is in the fairs. They
are not what they were. Some, indeed, maintain some of their
usefulness, but most of them have degenerated into a form of mild
Saturnalia, if not into a scandal and a nuisance; and for that reason
have been suppressed.
Formerly quite small villages had their fairs. If you look at an old
almanac you will see a list of fair-days with the names of the
villages which, when the appointed days come round, cannot now boast
of the presence of a single stall or merry-go-round. The day of the
fair was nearly always on or near the festival of the patron saint to
whom the church of that village is dedicated.
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