lve in the 2d.
box for thumb-marked sermons; stand gazing in learned fashion at
the great West Door, investigating the saints and apostles portrayed
thereon; hurry in their best hats and coats along the Close to some
ladies' tea-party, or pass with solemn and anxious mien into the palace
of the Bishop himself.

All these things belong to autumn in Polchester, as Jeremy very well
knew, but the event that marks the true beginning of the season, the
only way by which you may surely know that summer is over and autumn is
come is Pauper's Fair.

This famous fair has been, from time immemorial, a noted event in
Glebeshire life. Even now, when fairs have yielded to cinematographs as
attractions for the people, Pauper's Fair gives its annual excitement.
Thirty years ago it was the greatest event of the year in Polchester.
All our fine people, of course, disliked it extremely. It disturbed the
town for days, the town rocked in the arms of crowds of drunken sailors,
the town gave shelter to gipsies and rogues and scoundrels, the town,
the decent, amiable, happy town actually for a week or so seemed to
invite the world of the blazing fire and the dancing clown. No wonder
that our fine people shuddered. Only the other day--I speak now of these
modern times--the Bishop tried to stop the whole business. He wrote to
the Glebeshire Morning News, urging that Pauper's Fair, in these days of
enlightenment and culture, cannot but be regretted by all those who have
the healthy progress of our dear country at heart. Well, you would be
amazed at the storm that his protest raised. People wrote from all over
the County, and there were ultimately letters from patriotic Glebeshire
citizens in New Zealand and South Africa. And in Polchester
itself! Everyone--even those who had shuddered most at the fair's
iniquities--was indignant. Give up the fair! One of the few signs left
of that jolly Old England whose sentiment is cherished by us, whose
fragments nevertheless we so readily stamp upon. No, the fair must
remain and will remain, I have no doubt, until the very end of our
national chapter.

Nowadays it has shed, very largely, I am afraid, the character that it
gloriously maintained thirty years ago. Then it was really an invasion
by the seafaring element of the County. All the little country ports
and harbours poured out their fishermen and sailors, who came walking,
driving, singing, laughing, swearing; they filled the streets, and went
peer