A clog dance on a stage in a hall is sufficiently depressing to send a middle-aged man home to make his will, but imagine it done by an Englishman on a board outside an inn, on a hot day, so hot that the perspiration streaming down his face washed the burnt cork out in streaks, and then when this doleful performance was finally accomplished, think of a negro melody sung in the genuine cockney dialect, and accepted as a correct representation of the American African. By the way, in a first-class music hall I heard an English minstrel use the word “nothink,” and misplace his h’s as fluently as the most accomplished shopman. But the un-enlightened Englishman who had never heard the rich, mellow tones of the genuine African didn’t know any better, and so it was as well. People who love minstrelsy deserve nothing better.
By this time it was noon, and the sun was blazing hot. But the sun doesn’t mean as much on English roads as it does on American. England is some centuries old, and the roads are bordered on either side with immense trees, the hedges afford a grateful shade, and he who cannot find a delightful seat upon the soft grass is very hard to please. Exactly at noon the thousands of humble folk, the pony and donkey-cart people, stopped and unharnessed their diminutive power, and permitted it to crop the grass, while they unloaded those wonderful hampers, and spread them upon the grass and ate and drank. There was the boiled ham, the great masses of very bad bread made from the cheapest and worst American flour, the pot of mustard, and the inevitable bottle of beer. They sat under the delicious shade, men, women and children, and ate and drank and chaffed, and seemed to be enjoying themselves.
THE ROADSIDE REPAST.
I think they all did enjoy themselves, except the women. The children got more to eat than they did other days, so they were satisfied; the men, great hulking fellows, gorged themselves, and were pleased because they were full of beer, but the poor women had the children to care for, and that ought to have been enough to have destroyed all the pleasure there was in it to them. For be it understood, no English laborer’s wife ever leaves her children at home on holiday occasions. There are two reasons for this. One is there is nobody to leave them with, and the other is there is a vague idea that it is a part of a child’s education to know all about beer and public houses from its very beginning. Therefore, almost every woman on that road to the Derby, had from one to four children with her, the youngest very frequently being at the very tender age of a month. The husbands always permit the mother to assume the entire charge of the youngsters, and the wives accept the situation uncomplainingly. They carry the “brats,” as the fathers delicately style their offspring, and the small woman with a healthy baby in her arms, keeping three others in tow, under a hot sun, must have an amusing time of it. But they seem to like it, and I don’t know as it is any of my business. Only I am rejoiced that the venerable Miss Susan B. Anthony don’t know how the lower-grade Englishman treats his wife. Could she see what I have seen she would start upon another lecturing tour, as ancient as she is.
ON THE FIELD.