Go where we will, it gains the praise
Of gentlemen and misses.
* * * * *
“See hurdum-durdum, dust an’ din,
Wi’ showman an’ physician,
You’d think that they meeght Babel fin’
Class’d for a new edition.”
Cumberland Song.
The long-looked-for first of May, 1851, had at length arrived, and the morning was ushered in with merry peals from almost every steeple; afar off the drone of the thousand bells sounded like the boom of a huge gong—the signal, as it were, for the swarming of the Great Hive.
For miles round all wore a holiday aspect; the work-people with clean and smiling faces, and decked out in all the bright colours of their Sunday attire, were up and about shortly after daybreak, and, with their bundle of provisions on their arms, were soon seen streaming along the road, like so many living rays, converging towards the Crystal focus of the World.