This fair; the quantity
of hops that have been sold at one of these fairs is diversely
reported, and some affirm it to be so great, that I dare not copy
after them; but without doubt it is a surprising account,
especially in a cheap year.
The next article brought thither is wool, and this of several
sorts, but principally fleece wool, out of Lincolnshire, where the
longest staple is found; the sheep of those countries being of the
largest breed.
The buyers of this wool are chiefly indeed the manufacturers of
Norfolk and Suffolk and Essex, and it is a prodigious quantity they
buy.
Here I saw what I have not observed in any other county of England,
namely, a pocket of wool. This seems to be first called so in
mockery, this pocket being so big, that it loads a whole waggon,
and reaches beyond the most extreme parts of it hanging over both
before and behind, and these ordinarily weigh a ton or twenty-five
hundredweight of wool, all in one bag.
The quantity of wool only, which has been sold at this place at one
fair, has been said to amount to fifty or sixty thousand pounds in
value, some say a great deal more.
By these articles a stranger may make some guess at the immense
trade carried on at this place; what prodigious quantities of goods
are bought and sold here, and what a confluence of people are seen
here from all parts of England.
I might go on here to speak of several other sorts of English
manufactures which are brought hither to be sold; as all sorts of
wrought-iron and brass-ware from Birmingham; edged tools, knives,
etc., from Sheffield; glass wares and stockings from Nottingham and
Leicester; and an infinite throng of other things of smaller value
every morning.
To attend this fair, and the prodigious conflux of people which
come to it, there are sometimes no less than fifty hackney coaches
which come from London, and ply night and morning to carry the
people to and from Cambridge; for there the gross of the people
lodge; nay, which is still more strange, there are wherries brought
from London on waggons to ply upon the little river Cam, and to row
people up and down from the town, and from the fair as occasion
presents.
It is not to be wondered at, if the town of Cambridge cannot
receive, or entertain the numbers of people that come to this fair;
not Cambridge only, but all the towns round are full; nay, the very
barns and stables are turned into inns, and made as fit as they can
to lodge the meaner sort of people: as for the people in the fair,
they all universally eat, drink, and sleep in their booths and
tents; and the said booths are so intermingled with taverns,
coffee-houses, drinking-houses, eating-houses, cook-shops, etc.,
and all in tents too; and so many butchers and higglers from all
the neighbouring counties come into the fair every morning with
beef, mutton, fowls, butter, bread, cheese, eggs, and such things,
and go with them from tent to tent, from door to door, that there
is no want of any provisions of any kind, either dressed or
undressed.
In a word, the fair is like a well-fortified city, and there is the
least disorder and confusion I believe, that can be seen anywhere
with so great a concourse of people.
Towards the latter end of the fair, and when the great hurry of
wholesale business begins to be over, the gentry come in from all
parts of the county round; and though they come for their
diversion, yet it is not a little money they lay out, which
generally falls to the share of the retailers, such as toy-shops,
goldsmiths, braziers, ironmongers, turners, milliners, mercers,
etc., and some loose coins they reserve for the puppet shows,
drolls, rope-dancers, and such like, of which there is no want,
though not considerable like the rest. The last day of the fair is
the horse-fair, where the whole is closed with both horse and foot
races, to divert the meaner sort of people only, for nothing
considerable is offered of that kind. Thus ends the whole fair,
and in less than a week more, there is scarce any sign left that
there has been such a thing there, except by the heaps of dung and
straw and other rubbish which is left behind, trod into the earth,
and which is as good as a summer's fallow for dunging the land; and
as I have said above, pays the husbandman well for the use of it.
I should have mentioned that here is a court of justice always
open, and held every day in a shed built on purpose in the fair;
this is for keeping the peace, and deciding controversies in
matters deriving from the business of the fair. The magistrates of
the town of Cambridge are judges in this court, as being in their
jurisdiction, or they holding it by special privilege: here they
determine matters in a summary way, as is practised in those we
call Pye Powder Courts in other places, or as a Court of
Conscience; and they have a final authority without appeal.
I come now to the town and university of Cambridge; I say the town
and university, for though they are blended together in the
situation, and the colleges, halls, and houses for literature are
promiscuously scattered up and down among the other parts, and some
even among the meanest of the other buildings, as Magdalene College
over the bridge is in particular; yet they are all incorporated
together by the name of the university, and are governed apart and
distinct from the town which they are so intermixed with.
