MIA OR TRADES 151 



Sallies ; try-your-strength machines, and a hundred 

 others compete for the rustic's coin. Then, if he 

 wants a new suit of clothes, here is the clothier's 

 stall, where Hodge can bespeak a suit, wear it during 

 the next twelve months, and pay for it next Fair, 

 just as his father and grandfather used to do before 

 him. All the booths visited, the horse medicines 

 stall inspected, the latest improvements in agri- 

 cultural machinery gaped at, Hodge repairs to the 

 refreshment hovels, wherein certain crafty men who 

 have come down for the occasion from London are 

 awaiting him, to treat the unsuspecting yokel to 

 drinks, to lure him on to play cards, and finally to 

 cheat him and pick his pockets in the most finished 

 and approved fashion. For these gentry, and for the 

 disorderly in general, there is a police-station on the 

 ground, with cells all complete, and with local 

 magistrates eveiy morning to hear cases, and to 

 consign prisoners, if necessary, to Winchester Gaol, 

 sixteen miles away. 



The third and fourth days are now given up to 

 the Pleasure and Hop Fairs. One of the smaller 

 trades connected with the maltino- and oeneral aori- 

 cultural industries is that of malt-sliovel and ])arn- 

 shovel makino-. These are wooden shovels of a 

 jDeculiar shape, and are sold only at one stall. 

 Another of the minor businesses is that of umbrella 

 sellino-. The umbrellas are verv fine and laroe. and 

 of a kind that would make a marked man of any 

 Londoner who should use one in town. 



The Cheese Fair is now a small one, dealings 

 generally being confined to local folks, who delight in 



