146 THE EXETER ROAD 



be one of the places mentioned in Piers Plownimi s 

 Visio7i, in the line : — 



At Wy and at AVynchestre I went to ye fair, 



and it is the ' Weydon Priors ' of the Mayor of 

 Casterh7'idge, where Henchard sells his wife. 



Weyhill Fair was once — in the fine fat days of 

 agricultural prosperity, when England was always at 

 war with France, and corn was dear — a six-days fair. 

 As the ' oldest inhabitant ' to be discovered nowadays 

 at Weyhill will complain, shaking his head sadly the 

 while, ' There warn't none o' them 'ere 'sheenery 

 fal-lals about in them days to do the wark o' men 

 and harses so's no -one can't oet no decent livine; 

 like, d'ye see ? ' If by ' 'sheenery,' you understand 

 mechanical appliances — 'machinery,' in fact — to be 

 meant, you will see how distrustfully the agricultural 

 mind still marches to the modern cjuick-step of pro- 

 gress. There is always plenty of machinery on view 

 at Weyhill Fair : ploughs and harrows, and such like 

 inanimate things, and machinery in motion ; steam 

 threshers, w^innowers, binders, and the like, threshing, 

 and winnowing, and binding the empty air. 



There are special days set apart — and more or less 

 rigorously observed — for Hiring, for Pleasure, for the 

 Hop Fair, and for the sale of sheep. This great annual 

 fixture begins on Old Michaelmas Eve, 10th October, 

 and lasts four days, as against the six days, that 

 were all too short in which to do the business, up to 

 fifty years ago. Railways have dealt the old English 

 institution of fairs a deadly blow all over the country, 

 and before many more years have gone the majority 



