An Irishman made up as a red Indian, and called “Yokoomana, the celebrated fire-eater,” undertook to put the end of a red-hot poker into his mouth, across his tongue, and on the soles of his naked feet.
Then there were swings, roundabouts, gold gingerbread, gingerbread nuts, Wombwell’s brass band playing their loudest tunes, a horse with two heads and six legs, a mermaid, a wild man caught in the Black Forest, a learned pig, waxwork exhibitions, performing dogs and monkeys, acrobats, Mademoiselle Clotilda Favirini, the celebrated tight-rope dancer who had performed before most of the crowned heads of Europe, a sword-swallower, a Chinaman (hailing from Dublin), who threw sharp-painted swords at another Chinaman (hailing from Cork), the Cork Chinaman standing all the while with arms outstretched against a board against which the swords were thrown within the eighth of an inch of his body.
Added to all these was the snapping of guns at the nut stalls, the artificial screams of the young women, and the hoarse guffaws of the young men.
Peace and quietness were out of the question; throughout the livelong day there was a ceaseless row and clatter.
The crowd was composed of three distinct classes—first those who came for amusement only.
Smockfrocked bumpkins and gaily-dressed lasses, who had taken a fresh lease of servitude, and who had been permitted to enjoy a genuine holiday and witness sights which were only to be seen at fairs; clergymen and other professional men of status and respectability, who walked awkward through the crowd, trying to look as if they were not enjoying themselves; a score or so of boys from an adjacent boarding school walking in couples like prisoners out for exercise, with the head gaoler in black trousers and blue spectacles, anxiously clearing a way before them; and above all a rosy-cheeked housemaid, who, having stolen half-an hour’s liberty under pretext of an errand, was taking a sip at those waters which Solomon affirmed to be so sweet.
Some came only upon business.
Mr. Wrench and his two companions were included in this category.
Austere old maids, who scowled upon the circus, and sneered at the wild beasts; farmers and farmers’ wives; of the temperate-in-drink and intemperate-in-religion genus, who, like the Caliph Omar, deemed it necessary to make a hell of this world in order to merit the heaven of the next.
A goodly sprinkling of pickpockets; a host of young persons with painted faces and comical smiles; and, let us add for the benefit of my small readers, all the people engaged in the various places of amusement, from the pretty girl who looked so happy as she danced on the tight rope, down to the red and white-faced clown, who said such funny things that you nearly split your sides with laughing.