I.
The rambler in old France can seldom undertake a little journey during the summer without coming upon some town where a fair is in progress. At least, that has been my own experience, and in the course of wide wanderings through the highways and by-ways of the most delightful land in Europe I have witnessed many fairs in towns so far apart as Morlaix and Montluçon, Orleans and Beaucaire, Rennes and Lisieux. Nowhere does the distinctive character of a people show itself more strongly than in its public fairs and rejoicings. Thus, if one desired to get at a glance a glimpse into the different natures of the Briton and the Gaul, a visit to Glasgow Fair or Nottingham's famous Goose Fair, followed by a look round the great fair of Rennes or Orleans, would do more for one's education in this regard than a great deal of book learning.
An extensive and peculiar knowledge of Scottish and English holiday-making, which the vagrant life of journalism has enabled me to acquire, goes far to justify in my mind, when I think of the Frenchman and his merry-making, the charge directed against us by our friends across the Channel—that we take our pleasures sadly. There is very little to choose between an English and Scottish festival of the common people, though that little of brightness and genuine high spirits is in favour of the former. A more vulgar, tasteless, saddening spectacle than a Scottish saturnalia it is difficult to conceive. For ill manners, foul speech, stupid and low diversions, I have seen nothing so lacking in all the elements of joy as an Ayrshire country fair; it has made me blush for my countrymen. But when such a melancholy festival has awakened memory's contrasts of sights seen in merry France, I have been glad to believe that, speaking generally, while a fair in Scotland or in England stirs up the less worthy elements in the people's character, such an occasion in France, on the contrary, calls forth some of the better traits of the people.
Familiar types
A Lacemaker at Le Monastier