190 Bankruptcy in Arcadia. 



the bunghole, are no more ; the man who drew a dozen 

 yards of tape out of his mouth, and *' Middleton's Fan- 

 toccini," and the Hottentot Venus, who carried a cavalry 

 soldier on her panier, and pitched him over her head, would 

 find no audience now, as the fair would be stormed by the 

 scum of the earth from some neighbouring town, and a 

 dozen police would be required vice the parish beadle, who 

 was man enough to keep order, and who was wont to take 

 the exceptional wrong-doers — who had their ten days for 

 rioting and drunkenness — handcuffed in a cart to the county 

 ^aol next morning ; the keeper and prisoners being on the 

 best terms, and refreshing themselves on the way, and 

 probably talking over the fair. 



I miss the rat-hunt in the barn too. The old barns of 

 unknown age are replaced by substantial buildings, bricked 

 and slated, and comj^aratively rat-proof. The old flail is a 

 thing of the past, and so are the piles of golden gi^ain in 

 the corner of the barn ; and there is now no necessity for 

 farmer Broadbean's rat-hunt, where every boy and every 

 dog in the parish were welcome, and there was as much 

 dog fighting as rat-hunting. The corn is carried, threshed 

 by machinery, and packed off before the rats can get at it. 

 In fact, I complain of the abolition of " the rat which ate 

 the malt," (fee, who acquired, if possible, additional immor- 

 tality through the agency of Mr. Caldecott's inimitable 

 drawings in his little Christmas book, " The House that 

 Jack built." Some of the sheep-shearing and harvest 

 suppers, and village revels under no control, are not much 

 loss, as bucolical youths, overloaded with beef and beer and 

 pudding, were not nice specimens of humanity, and often- 

 times were remarkably objectionable, and showed dis- 

 positions little less than savage and brutal. 



What is most missed now is the sociability which existed 

 when neighbours in a county were at home mostly all the 



