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the "purse." This mode of punishment prevailed also among soldiers ashore, with this notable distinction, however, that "watch" and purse were not included in the regular number of strokes, but given in, as the phrase is. Grose adds that, under the name of "School butter," this discipline was enforced by schoolboys in Ireland upon people coming into the school without taking off their hats.

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FAIRS

RE a greater kind of markets, established for the more speedy and commodious provision of such things as may be required by the towns to which the privilege of holding them is granted. They are generally kept once or twice in a year; proclamation being first made of their duration, and no one being allowed to sell any article after the appointed time, on pain of forfeiture of double its value.

Prior to the springing up of flourishing towns, when the necessaries of life became procurable in various places through convenience of communication therewith, goods and commodities of every kind formed the staple of the fairs; to which the people repaired periodically for the purpose of supplying their wants for the ensuing year. The display of merchandise at what in those days were the chief, if not the sole, emporia of domestic commerce, was on a scale proportioned to the conflux of customers; and accordingly they often were held on open and wide plains. One of the most famous was that held on St Giles' Hill, or Down, near Winchester. It was instituted by William the Conqueror, who gave it by way of revenue to the local bishop. Its duration originally was for three days, but Henry III. extended it to sixteen; and its jurisdiction covered a circuit of seven miles, comprehending even Southampton, at that period a capital and a trading town. All goods sold within that circuit during the fair were forfeited to the bishop; officers were posted, at considerable distances, on bridges and other avenues to the fair, to exact a toll of all merchandise in course of transport; and all the shops in the city of Winchester were closed. A Court, called the Pavilion, which consisted of the bishop's justiciaries and other officers, was empowered to try causes of various sorts within the defined limit of seven miles; every load or parcel of goods that passed through the gates of the city contributed its quota of toll; and on the Eve of St Giles the mayor, bailiffs, and citizens of Winchester delivered the keys of the four ga.es to the episcopal officers. Many and extraordinary were the privileges granted to the bishop on this occasion, all tending to the obstruction of trade and to the oppression of the people. The fair was attended by numbers of foreign merchants; the several commodities were disposed for sale in the streets specially assigned to them; and the different counties had their own distinct stations. Moreover, the neighbouring monasteries had shops or houses in these streets, used only at fair-time, which they held under the bishop, and frequently leased to tenants for a term of years. The decline in popularity of this renowned fair is attested by the revenue

roll of William of Waynflete for the year 1471, a whole district (ubi homines cornubiæ stare solebant) being recorded as unoccupied.

The household accounts of the fifth Earl of Northumberland (1512) disclose that the annual supplies for his lordship's house at Wresille were obtained at fairs; and similarly we gather from the accounts of the Priories of Maxtoke in Warwickshire, and of Bicester in Oxfordshire, in the time of Henry VI., that the monks used annually to lay in stores of various, yet common, necessaries at the fair held in Sturbridge in Cambridgeshire, which lay at least a hundred miles away from either monastery. It may seem surprising that Oxford and Coventry did not provide for the ordinary wants of the monks, not to speak of the extra expense of carriage of supplies from the fair; but it was a rubric in some of the monastic rules regarding attendance at fairs. The fact that wine, wax, wheat, and malt were among the articles obtained by the Earl of Northumberland, moreover, is proof that fairs still continued to be the main marts for the purchase of necessaries in large quantities; and the mention of "beiffes" and "multons"-otherwise salted oxen and sheep-betrays evidence of the small progress then made in the science of cattle-breeding.

Two annual fairs, held on the Town Moor at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, are called Lammas and St Luke's Fairs, from the days on which they begin; and Bourne's history of the town relates that at each the tolls, booths, stallage, pickage, and courts of pie-powder, in the time of Cromwell, yielded, on an average, twelve pounds.

In ancient Christian times, writes Bailey, upon any extraordinary solemnity, particularly the anniversary of the dedication of a church, tradesmen were wont to bring and sell their wares even in the churchyards. At Westminster it was on St Peter's day; in London, on St Bartholomew's; and in Durham, on St Cuthbert's; but, riots and disturbances frequently arising from the large assembly of people, privileges were granted by Royal Charter, for various reasons, to particular towns, and places of security, where magistrates presided to keep the people in order. Courts of pie-powder (from poudre des piez, so called because justice was done to an injured man before the dust of the fair was off his feet) were granted to these gatherings for the repression of all offences and disorders thereat.

Eden's State of the Poor (1797) records the attendance of servants for hire at the "Mop" or statute fair held at Michaelmas in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, and Berkshire, their several occupations being indicated by badges. Thus, the carter exhibited a piece of whipcord to his hat; the cow-herd had a lock of cow hair in his; and the dairymaid was similarly distinguished. So at the Spring term in the North of England, we read that servants seeking to be hired, being generally those employed in husbandry, wore large bouquets of flowers at their breasts. At that date bricklayers and other house-labourers carried their respective implements to the places where they stood for hire, even in London; Cheapside and Charing Cross being crowded with them every morning between five and six o'clock. Here it may be remarked that in old Rome particular spots were assigned to servants applying for hire.

According to Plott, at Bloxham the carters stood with their whips

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