The
audience included not only the usual frequenters of fairs, but even
royal visitors, noblemen, and great ladies flocked to the booths for
amusement, and during its continuance the playhouses of London were
closed.
I must not omit to mention the other attractions, the fireproof lady,
Madam Giradelli, who put melted lead in her mouth, passed red-hot iron
over her body, thrust her arm into fire, and washed her hands in
boiling oil; Mr. Simon Paap, the Dutch dwarf, twenty-eight inches
high; bear-dancing, the learned pig, the "beautiful spotted negro
boy," peep-shows, Wombell's royal menagerie, the learned cats, and a
female child with two perfect heads.
But it is time to ring down the curtain. The last days of the fair
were not edifying. Scenes of riot and debauch, of violence and
lawlessness disgraced the assembly. Its usefulness as a gathering for
trade purposes had passed away. It became a nuisance and a disgrace to
London. In older days the Lord Mayor used to ride in his grand coach
to our old gateway, and there proclaim it with a great flourish of
trumpets. In 1850 his worship walked quietly to the accustomed place,
and found that there was no fair to proclaim, and five years later the
formality was entirely dispensed with, and silence reigned over the
historic ground over which century after century the hearts of our
forefathers throbbed with the outspoken joys of life.
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