ABSTRACT
As to accidents in travel, we, no doubt, have our full share; but since our arrival in England the railroad trains have had some pretty rough shakings, and the results in loss of life and limb would have passed for quite ugly enough, even had they happened in the west. I very much wish you could have been with us on Easter Monday, when we passed the day at Greenwich, and were at the renowned Greenwich Fair, which lasts for three days. The scene of revelry takes place in the Park, a royal one, and really a noble one. Here all the riffraff and bobtail of London repair in their finery, and have a time. You can form no notion of the affair; it cannot be described. The upper part of the Park, towards the Royal Observatory, is very steep, and down this boys and girls, men and women, have a roll. Such scenes as are here to be witnessed we cannot match. Nothing can exceed the doings that occur. All the public houses swarm, and in no spot have I ever seen so many places for drinking as are here. The working-men of London, and apprentices, with wives and sweethearts, all turn out Easter Monday. It seems as though all the horses, carts, chaises, and hackney coaches of the city were on the road. We saw several enormous coal wagons crammed tightly with boys and girls. On the fine heath, or down, that skirts the Park, are hundreds of donkeys, and you are invited to take a halfpenny, penny, or twopenny ride. All sorts of gambling are to be seen. One favorite game with the youngsters was to have a tobacco box, full of coppers, stuck on a stick standing in a hole, and then, for a halfpenny paid to the proprietor, you are entitled to take a shy at the mark. If it falls into the hole, you lose; if you knock it off, and away from the hole, you take it. It requires, I fancy, much adroitness and experience to make any thing at “shying” at the “bacca box.” At night, Greenwich is all alive—life is out of London and in the fair. But let the traveller who has to return to town beware. The road is full of horses and vehicles, driven by drunken men and boys; and, for four or five miles, you can imagine that a city is besieged, and that the inhabitants are flying from the sword. O, such weary-looking children as we saw that day! One favorite amusement was to draw a little wooden instrument quick over the coat of another person, when it produces a noise precisely like that of a torn garment. Hundreds of these machines were in the hands of the urchins who crowded the Park. Here, for the first time, I saw the veritable gypsy of whose race we have read so much in Borrow’s Zincali. The women are very fine looking, and some of the girls were exquisitely beautiful. They are a swarthy-looking set, and seem to be a cross of Indian and Jew. Those we saw were proper wiry-looking fellows. One or two of the men were nattily dressed, with fancy silk handkerchiefs. They live in tents, and migrate through the midland counties, but I believe are not as numerous as they were thirty years ago. You will not soon forget how we were pleased with the memoirs of Bamfield Moore Carew, who was once known as their king in Great Britain. I wonder that book has never been reprinted in America. I am pretty sure that Greenwich Park would please your taste. I think the view from the Royal Observatory, and from whence longitude is reckoned, is one of the grandest I have ever seen. You get a fine view of the noble palace once the royal residence, but now the Sailor’s Home. You see the Thames, with its immense burden, and, through the mist, the great city. As to the Hospital, we shall leave that for another excursion: we came to Greenwich at present merely to witness Easter Fair, and it will not soon be forgotten by any of us.
