"The trade for wool, hops, and leather here is prodigious; the quantity of wool only sold at one fair is said to have amounted to £50,000 or £60,000, and of hops very little less.
"September 14, being the Horse Fair day, is the day of the greatest hurry, when it is almost incredible to conceive what number of people there are, and the quantity of victuals that day consumed by them.
"During the Fair, Colchester oysters and white herrings, just coming into season, are in great request, at least by such as live in the inland parts of the kingdom, where they are seldom to be had fresh, especially the latter.
"The Fair is like a well-governed city; and less disorder and confusion to be seen there than in any other place where there is so great a concourse of people: here is a Court of Justice always open from morning till night, where the Mayor of Cambridge, or his Deputy, sits as Judge, determining all controversies in matters arising from the business of the Fair, and seeing the Peace thereof kept; for which purpose he hath eight servants, called Red-coats, attending him during the time of the Fair and other public occasions, one or other of which are constantly at hand in most parts of the Fair; and if any dispute arise between buyer and seller, on calling out 'Red-coat,' you have instantly one or more come running to you; and if the dispute is not quickly decided, the offender is carried to the said Court, where the case is decided in a summary way, from which sentence there lies no appeal.
"About two or three days after the Horse Fair day, when the hurry of the wholesale business is over, the country gentry for about ten or twelve miles round begin to come in with their sons and daughters; and though diversion is what chiefly brings them, yet it is not a little money they lay out among the tradesmen, toy-shops, etc., besides what is flung away to see the puppet shows, drolls, rope-dancing, live creatures, etc., of which there is commonly plenty.
"The last observation I shall make concerning this Fair is, how inconveniently a multitude of people are lodged there who keep it; their bed (if I may so call it) is laid on two or three boards, nailed to four pieces that bear it about a foot from the ground, and four boards round it, to keep the persons and their clothes from falling off, and is about five feet long, standing abroad all day if it rains not. At night it is taken into their booths, and put in to the best manner they can; at bed-time they get into it, and lie neck and heels together until the morning, if the wind and rain do not force them out sooner; for a high wind often blows down their booths, as it did A.D. 1741, and a heavy rain forces through the hair-cloth that covers it.
"Though the Corporation of Cambridge has the tolls of this Fair, and the government as aforesaid, yet the body of the University has the oversight of the weights and measures thereof (as well as at Midsummer and Reach Fairs) and the licensing of all show-booths, live creatures, etc.; and the Proctors of the University keep a Court there also to hear complaints about weights and measures, seek out and punish lewd women, and see that their Gownsmen commit no disorders."
Fuller (in the seventeenth century) gives us the tradition that the fair originated with some Westmorland cloth dealers, who were here overtaken by a storm on their way to Norwich, and found so ready a market for the goods which they spread out to dry on the grass of the common that they went no further but returned hither the next year, and again. Thus the special prominence given to the "Duddery" here is accounted for. The tradition does not seem improbable, for Kendal has, from time immemorial, been renowned for its cloth—the famous "Kendal green" worn, in old ballads, by the English archers. To this day the shield of that town bears cloth-making implements, with the motto "Pannus mihi panis" ("Flock is my food"). And Norwich was (throughout the Middle Ages) the great commercial centre of the cloth trade. That there was some marked connection between Cambridgeshire and Westmorland is proved by the constant occurrence here of family names derived from Kendal place-names (Sizergh, Docwray, Strickland, Sedgwick, etc.) which have been current amongst the peasantry of Cambridgeshire since the fourteenth century at least.
Since Carter wrote, the great development of communication has made fairs a mere survival, and Stourbridge Fair has fallen from its high estate. It is now a very commonplace affair of a few days' duration, mainly for the horse trade. But it still is declared open by the Mayor of Cambridge or his delegate, and a dish of the white herrings which Carter speaks of still forms part of the opening ceremony. And it has an abiding interest for English readers, as the prototype of "Vanity Fair" in the "Pilgrim's Progress." Bunyan, as a Bedford man, would be familiar with the bustling scene, and, if we compare his pages with those which we have transcribed from Carter's History, we see how vividly he has allegorised it:
"At this Fair are all such Merchandize sold as Houses, Lands, Trades, Places, Honours, Preferments, Titles, Countreys, Kingdoms, Lusts, Pleasures, and Delights of all sorts, as Whores, Bauds, Wives, Husbands, Children, Masters, Servants, Lives, Blood, Bodies, Souls, Silver, Gold, Pearls, Precious Stones, and what not.