The Merry Past 



The man of fashion at the West End of the town 

 was aped by many a young cit from the purHeus of 

 the Royal Exchange (whose father had amassed a 

 competence by the rigid observance of the laws of 

 economy, and who transmitted his property, though 

 not his prudence, to his son) ; such a man deemed it 

 necessary, as a stylish lad of spirit, to buy a bit of 

 blood, keep his gig, his girl, and his lodgings on the 

 skirts of Epping Forest ; and, as his keeping his gig 

 and his girl afforded him but a restricted pleasure, 

 unless all the world saw them, he made it a uniform 

 practice to take Bet, as he familiarly called her, to 

 all fairs, reviews, camps, Epping hunt, and the races 

 at Epsom, Ascot Heath, Egham, and the like. 



A lower type of pleasure-seeker was the greengrocer 

 from St. Giles's, who, deriving his important being 

 from the auspicious efforts of a link-boy and a barrow- 

 woman, could not think of descending to the grave 

 without being stylish and participating in the fashion- 

 able amusements of the age. This gentleman thought 

 it supreme felicity to procure a light cart, drawn by 

 a raw-boned blind pony, or a donkey ; into this 

 vehicle he conveyed three chairs, some geneva, hung 

 beef, tobacco, pipes, and a tinder-box, and then 

 mounting with his favourite doxy and sandman Joe, 

 drove rapidly to a boxing-match, an ass-race, or a bull- 

 bait, at Ball's Pond, Tothill Fields, or Bow Common. 



The buck of the beginning of the nineteenth 

 century was altogether different from his predecessor 

 of a quarter of a century earlier, who was of a more 

 vicious type. 



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