MINOR TRADES
There is certainly every opportunity of spending money on the spot. Steam merry-go-rounds keep up a continual screeching and bellowing; stalls with all manner of toys and nick-nacks of the most grotesque shapes and hideous colouring; cake and sweetmeat stalls, loaded, as Weyhill stalls have been from time immemorial, with Salisbury gingerbread; Aunt Sallies; try-your-strength machines, and a hundred others compete for the rustic’s coin. Then, if he wants a new suit of clothes, here is the clothier’s stall, where Hodge can bespeak a suit, wear it during the next twelve months, and pay for it next Fair, just as his father and grandfather used to do before him. All the booths visited, the horse medicines stall inspected, the latest improvements in agricultural machinery gaped at, Hodge repairs to the refreshment hovels, wherein certain crafty men who have come down for the occasion from London are awaiting him, to treat the unsuspecting yokel to drinks, to lure him on to play cards, and finally to cheat him and pick his pockets in the most finished and approved fashion. For these gentry, and for the disorderly in general, there is a police-station on the ground, with cells all complete, and with local magistrates every morning to hear cases, and to consign prisoners, if necessary, to Winchester Gaol, sixteen miles away.
The third and fourth days are now given up to the Pleasure and Hop Fairs. One of the smaller trades connected with the malting and general agricultural industries is that of malt-shovel and barn-shovel making. These are wooden shovels of a peculiar shape, and are sold only at one stall. Another of the minor businesses is that of umbrella selling. The umbrellas are very fine and large, and of a kind that would make a marked man of any Londoner who should use one in town.
The Cheese Fair is now a small one, dealings generally being confined to local folks, who delight in the Blackmore and ‘Blue Vinney’ cheeses of this and the adjoining counties. London dealers still attend the Hop Fair, in which many thousands of pounds’ worth of hops change hands to the drinking of much champagne, brought on to the ground by the cart-load, as in the brave days of yore. There are two distinct hop markets, the Farnham Row and the Country Side. Hops from Farnham, Bentley, Petersfield, Liphook, and other neighbouring places find a ready market. They are sold more exclusively by sample than formerly, and so only a few ‘pockets,’ as the tightly packed sacks are named, are visible. Round them dealers may be seen, rubbing the hops in their hands and smelling them with a knowing look, while the vendor cuts another sample out of the pocket for the next likely customer. He does this with a singular steel instrument called a ‘sample drawer.’ First a sharp and long-bladed knife is thrust into the hard mass, and two sides cut, and then the broad-bladed ‘drawer’ driven in and screwed tight, bringing out a compact square of hops to be tested.
By nine o’clock every night all the booths and stalls have to be closed, and stillness reigns over the scene, save for the cough of the sheep, the occasional lowing of the cattle, or the fretful whinnying of a wakeful horse. And when the last day of the Fair is done, the booths are all shut up and deserted, and desolation reigns again for a year.
XXII
ABBOT’S ANN
The trail of the Romans is over all the surroundings of Andover, and they must have loved this fishful and fertile valley well, for ample relics of extensive settlements and gorgeous villas have been unearthed by the plough. Some of the fine mosaic pavements discovered here are now in the British Museum, and every now and again the shepherd or the ploughman picks up a worn and battered coin of the Cæsars in the neighbouring fields. One of the finest Roman pavements came from the village of Abbot’s Ann, a short distance away, under the shadow of the great bulk of Bury Hill, which, crowned with prehistoric earthworks of cyclopean size, frowns down upon the valley. The whimsical name of this village and that of Little Ann derive from the stream, the Ann, or Anton, on whose banks they are situated.
In this village of Abbot’s Ann there still prevails a remarkable custom. On the death of a young unmarried person of the parish, his or her friends and relatives make a funeral garland, or chaplet, similar to the one sketched overleaf, in paper, and hang it from the ceiling of the church. The interior of the building now holds quite a number of these singular mementoes, the oldest dating back to the last century. They are fashioned of cardboard and white paper, something in the shape of a crown, with elaborately cut rosettes and with five paper gloves suspended, on two of which are recorded the name, the age, and the date of death of the deceased whose memory is thus kept alive, while the other three are inscribed with texts or verses from favourite hymns. The particulars of age and death are repeated on a little wooden shield above.
