314 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



inhabited part is, with some great men's places 

 outlying. But a great settlement of mainly flint 

 and slate with some thatch hutches and shanties, 

 not forgetting the shebeens, runs in double file 

 for — what shall I say? — half a mile, or getting 

 on that way. Nearly all are constructed with the 

 upper half of their low frontage to open on hinges, 

 and so make a stall. There they are by the score 

 and score, all the worse for wear, yet good enough 

 temporary quarters for dealers in everything agri- 

 cultural, from beer to breeches and from hops to 

 sheep dip, not to mention the comestibles and 

 indlgestibles, the dinners and lunches and teas, 

 and the fairings offering something like percep- 

 tible percentage of value for money, as, for 

 instance, whelks and ginger beer, down to the 

 innumerable collection of uselessnesses, to me 

 symbols of teetotalism as she is spoke in the big 

 gala — run on Newcastle's Town Moor in opposi- 

 tion to Gosforth Park Races. 



Imagine three-quarters of a mile on end of 

 shedding, originally insufficient for the require- 

 ments of the thousands of Jocks and Jennies who 

 hied them to the fair for enjoyment after, or con- 

 currently with, the enormous trade done, having 

 live mutton for leading article. And imagine 

 your humble servant all alone by himself gazing 

 on these, which, if spick and span, instead of not 

 showing a foot of paint to the lot of them, would 

 be as cheerful as a "bathing-machine in mid- winter. 

 I had a long spell, peopling the place, dressing 

 the scene with early nineteenth-century supers 

 and accessories, while really I had for sole 

 company only broken bottles, old oyster shells 

 (blue pointers alleged), and notices two or three 

 deep of somebody's dinners, luncheons, and teas. 



