Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1899-10-17
Ex-Marshalltown Citizen Writes En-.
tertainingly Of the Nottingham
Goose Fair.
Many Comparisons With Local Resi-.
dents and Personal Pleasantries
Indulged in Galore.
Cost Of Living in England Gus
toms, People, Castles and Other
Observations.

citizen now residing in the city of
Nottinpham, England. He requests
that for apparent reasons do not
use my name in any way in connec-
ton with the enclosed letter." He
was probably afraid that the T.-R.
might find its way into the hands
of the English greatly to his dis
comfiture, so we will defer to
his wishes. His identity. however,
will need no explanation to Mar
shalltown readers.-Ed.]
Nottingham, England, Oct. 1, 1885,
This has been the week of the goose
fair in Nottingham. The great market
place, the oldest and largest in Eng
land, is filled with collection of mod
ern England's curios, ryalling, at least
to a student of the why and Wherefore,
the ensemble of the Midway Plaisance.
The booths of the usual country hawk
ers have been largely crowded out
Only the fish and game stalls remain.
The others have been abandoned or are
scattered in various parts of the old
town, but no one pays any attention to
i
sympathy with the modern and some
what sacrilegious movement to abolish
the fair altogether. One who has never
come into close communion with Eng
fish tradition--never felt that thrcb for
things which are pre- historic and dis
trait and out of all touch With things of
ltoday-cannot, of course, appreciate the
goose fair. for it carries about with it
that aroma of sweet lavender which
the good housewives here still put be-
tween their sheets and With which
Imaidens fortfy their pillow slips
against the days to come The smell OF
( it takes you back behind the Norman
conquest, even to severai years before
the Christian era, when Caesar first
cast his eye upon the isle of the Briton
and concluded that it would be good
thing if he could get it,
In history the goose fair is first re-
iferred to in charter granted to the
town of Nottingham by Edward the
First, in 1890. The fact that is was
then so referred to is proof conclusive
THAT it was a big thing; otherwise it
would have been completely lost along
! with Robin Hood. Will Scarlet and
| F'riar Tuck-peace to their ashes. The
| fair began, of old, With the first Thurs
day in October and lasted three weeks.
! One cannot help. in accounting the fact
i being filled with mild wonder as to
what the rest of the island might be do
ling during that time. Later it was cut
down to eight days Even that proved
/ too much for the phlegmatic Briton.
He went to parliament with his COM
! plant, and by he act of IA the glory
| of the goose fair was circumscribed to
! three days. Originally. and for u few
! hundred years following 1900. large
jdroves of geese, from $4,000 to 10000,
were driven up from Lincolnshire fens
! for sale. Every gate swung outward to
| let them in. and even today, so directly
does the Briton inherit all the faults
and follies of his ancestors. no Michael
| mas-Day feast is complete without its
roast goose.
| OF course there are traditions innum-
cradle as to how the name first became
ATTACHED to the occasion. but / take the
most authentic to be this: A farmer,
4 who for some reason or other possibly
grief for the loss OF his wife) hau
brought IL. his three sons in total Sc
Eclusion. during which they never saw
\ a woman. On arriving at mans estate,
| he brought them to the goose fair,
promising to buy each of them whatso-
ever he though best. They gazed about
/ them. asking the names of whatever
| they saw, when, beholding some women
walking. dressed in white, they de-
mandea what they We're. The farmer
somewhat alarmed at the eagerness oil
| the question. replied. pho, those silly
things are geese" Then, without wait
| ing an instant. all three exclaimed.
Father, buy me goose / find this
| old story In Homes Table Book, written
SO long ago that you have TO get down
behind Murray's back shelves to find it,
and therefore | take it to be correct
There are other fairs In England. 1T
may well be imagined Birmingham
1 has an onion fair. Hull has potato
| fair and other enterprising places have
| fairs differently and Wonderfully made,
but they are all weak and watery imi-
| tations of the only goose fair that isn't
a goose fair now at all--only saturn
1 ALA for the lower classes. Here go
your butler and housekeeper. if you
have them. your coachman and foot
man, the gardner and the cook, the
parlour maid and the scullery girl
while Tommy Atkins from the army
and Tommy Allen from the colliery
! swish around the outside and stir up
heaps of trouble. Everything to eat
| that Is unwholesome; everything to
drink except the American cocktail or
soda water: every sound that tears
| harmony to tatters. 1t is we'll, perhaps,
that the cocktail has never surmounted
the brick wall of British prejudice.
Scotch whisky and English ale do
fairly well. Put two or three American
cocktails into the cockney or coster-
monger, and the goose fair would get
dizzy. Fifteen acres of people, packed
$50 densely that II you are off your
guard you may get picked up from u
side street and carried. willy-nilly,
down into the thick of it; fifteen
thousand dialects and costumes: fifteen
million smells; one billion discords:
merry go-rounds that would make
Halbert or Phin Balch get out an in
junction; Punch and Judy in all varia-
tons; side shows to make the shade of
p. I. Barnum smile; electrical and
Photographic wonders; wild animals
that Hagenback never saw-and, above
| and beyond all description in news
paper article. the people. Scarborough
during a hot month. nor Coney Island
during the zenith of Tammany blow
out. never saw such sights as are to be
seen at the Nottingham goose fair.