It is not to be wondered at, if the town of Cambridge cannot
receive, or entertain the numbers of people that come to this fair;
not Cambridge only, but all the towns round are full; nay, the very
barns and stables are turned into inns, and made as fit as they can
to lodge the meaner sort of people: as for the people in the fair,
they all universally eat, drink, and sleep in their booths and
tents; and the said booths are so intermingled with taverns,
coffee-houses, drinking-houses, eating-houses, cook-shops, etc.,
and all in tents too; and so many butchers and higglers from all
the neighbouring counties come into the fair every morning with
beef, mutton, fowls, butter, bread, cheese, eggs, and such things,
and go with them from tent to tent, from door to door, that there
is no want of any provisions of any kind, either dressed or
undressed.
In a word, the fair is like a well-fortified city, and there is the
least disorder and confusion I believe, that can be seen anywhere
with so great a concourse of people.
Towards the latter end of the fair, and when the great hurry of
wholesale business begins to be over, the gentry come in from all
parts of the county round; and though they come for their
diversion, yet it is not a little money they lay out, which
generally falls to the share of the retailers, such as toy-shops,
goldsmiths, braziers, ironmongers, turners, milliners, mercers,
etc.
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