104 Wrld Life in a Southern County. 
tories, have not touched the traditional prestige of 
these gatherings. 
For instance, you may find a town which, by the 
incidence of the railroad and the springing up of 
great industries, has shot far ahead of the other sleepy 
little places ; its population may treble itself, its trade 
be ten times as large, its attractions one would 
imagine incalculably greater. Nothing of the kind: 
its annual fair is not nearly so important an event to 
the village mind as that of an old-world slumberous 
place removed from the current of civilisation. This 
place, which is perhaps eight or nine miles by road, 
with no facilities of communication, has from time 
immemorial had a reputation for its fair. There, 
accordingly, the scattered rural population wends, 
making no account of distance and very little of 
weather : it is a country maxim that it always rains 
on fair day, and mostly thunders. There they as- 
semble and enjoy themselves in the old-fashioned 
way, which consists in standing in the streets, buying 
‘fairings’ for the girls, shooting for nuts, visiting all 
the shows, and so on. 
To push one’s way through such a crowd is no 
simple matter; the countryman does not mean to 
be rude, but he has not the faintest conception that 
politeness demands a little yielding. He has to be 
shoved, and makes no objection. A city crowd is to 
a certain extent mobile—each recognises that he 
