COUNTRY FAIRS AND REVELS. 
G7 
proper. Henry Sumner Maine, in his lectures on Village Com- 
munities* seems to hold that such communities originated in the 
associations of kinsmen, united by the assumption (doubtless very 
vaguely conceived) of a common lineage, as is found to be the case 
in India. The end for which they existed was for the tillage of 
the soil, but besides the cultivators many engaged in the humbler 
arts which provided the little community with articles of use and 
comfort. In early times the price of any article, whether the 
produce of the land or the industry of the township, was a fixed 
rate determined by custom in the long series of royal, parliamentary, 
and municipal attempts to fix prices by tariff. At this rate the 
inhabitants, and perhaps just their immediate neighbours, were 
accustomed to exchange their produce, and obtain such necessaries 
as their neighbours had to part with. The markets formed the 
place of such weekly sales, and the right to hold markets was a 
grant from the Parliament to lords of manors, and was at first 
only open to such. In course of time, as each township mastered 
and overcame the natural obstacles of the soil, thereby rendering 
the land more productive, and the appliances improved which 
assisted the artizan in his trade, more was produced than the in- 
habitants required. This surplus must be exported beyond the 
district, and the concourse of people assembled at the revel or 
festival of some popular saint offered an opportunity to meet on 
neutral ground with the consumer from a distance. 
Thus it came about that every parishioner not only felt he had a 
certain right in all the produce of his parish, but could claim to 
purchase at the custom, or, as it is called, " times price," anything 
which a neighbour was disposed to sell, before it was offered to a 
stranger at a fair. I am not aware that this fact has been noticed 
or recorded elsewhere ; but the idea still lingers in our rural districts 
that it is at least unneighbourly to offer in a fair anything that it 
is supposed or known a neighbour requires, although by doing so a 
higher price may be obtained. This idea is so vague and intangible 
that I have never heard it expressed in 'words, but only insinuated 
by stray remarks and gestures. Practically it is frequently acted on, 
as anyone resident in the country knows that cattle are generally 
offered to a neighbour who is thought likely to require them, a few 
days before a fair, where in all probability public competition would 
draw a higher price. This is always accepted as a mark of neigh- 
* " Village Communities," Lecture vi , " Hist. Price and Kent." 
E 2 
