Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1900-06-22
Wastin9tun Standard
TWO WORLDS FAIRS.

one l':ndrtd and scvcnty-cight
wears ago. rau.cl prFoc visited 1tour-
bridge far in England, and wrote de-
~cljptivcly Of that great gathering. 1t
Is Instructive at thi, time to compare
the worlds greatest iair al 1922 with
,i.r worli'- r'r.s Exposition Of 1900.
I'cFoc saw ~tou.b,iIgc lair early in
September. when at its height. and
rron0'lnccd it "I.ot only tho greatest
IN the whole nation, bat in the world !;
Epr, ii may Le,icyc tho'o who haze
seen them all, ! the fair at Leipzig in
Saxnny, the mart 1T Frankfort-onthe-
Main, or the fairs at Euremburg or
Augsburg any way to c"mpar" to this
fair at Stourbridgc."
But the >tourbridgc fair was a crude
enterprise compared with the Paris
Exposition, or our Worlds Fair OF
1893 for the mart was held in Il wheat
field, and the husbandmen who titled
the ground had to u certain day in
August to harvest their grain, failing
III which the fair keepers were privi-
legged to come in and tramplc the
grain under foot. On the other hand,
il the occupants were not out of the
way by 4 certain day in September,
the ploughmen were privileged to come
i'll with pillow and cart, and overthrow
all, and trample it into the dirt"
The fair occupied an area of about
half a mile square. Exhibitors and
traders came in and erected booths in
long lines, with streets between, and
with certain sections set apart for GER
tain lines of goods. The retailers
came down from London, and with
them host of coffee-houses, taverns,
brandy-shops and eating-houses, all in
booths and tents.
The section set aside for the whole.
salers in woolens was called the Dud-
derry, name whose significance puz-
zled DeFoe, and from which we prob
ably derive the colloquial term "duds,"
now applied to clothing. In this Dud-
derry 100000 worth of woolens were
occasionally sold in less than a week,
and single wholesaler frequently car.
ried back orders to the amount of $780,
900.
DeFoe was impressed with the mag
nitude OF the exhibits from Yorkshire,
Lancashire and Manchester. "The
quantity is SO great" he explained,
that there were near a thousand
horse packs from that side OF the
country, and these took up side and
half of the Duddery at least" 1t is
a far cry from the long trains which
unload exhibits at the Paris EXPOSE
ton, back to the primitive pack trains
that carried goods to the worlds fair
of 1922.
After the fair for the wooden manu-
features began to draw to a close, the
dealers in wool and hops took their
turn at big trading, "and there was
scarce any price fixed for hops in
England till they knew how they sold
at Stourbridge fair"
II must not omit here also to men,
tion," explained the author of Robin
son Crusoe, that the river Grant, or
Cam, which runs close by the north
west side of the fair, in its way from
Cambridge to Ely, is navigable, and
that, by this means, all heavy goods
are brought, even to the fair field, by
water carriage from London and other
parts; first to the port of Lynn, and
then in barges up the Ouse, and from
the Ouse into the CAM"
Toward the close of the fair, the
gentry came in from the surrounding
country and made business lively
among the gold-smiths, toy-shops,
braziers, ironmongers, turner's, mer-
GERS, milliners, etc., "and some loose
coin they reserved for the puppet
shows. drolls, rore-dancers and such
like, OF which there is no want"
The last day was devoted to the
horse-fair, with races by horsemen and
footmen. "Thus ends the whole fair"
wrote DeFoe, "and in less than week
more there is scarce any sign left that
there has been any such thing there"
To preserve the peace, a justice
court was always open, held in shed
on the fairgrounds. The magistrates
of the town of Cambridge were judges
in this court, and determined matters
in summary way, having final au-
thority without appeal.
The contrast between the fair at
Stourbridge in 1922, and the fair at
Paris in 1900 is too stupendous to be
grasped by the mind. Between them
lie the inventions and the progress of
two centuries, the birth and maturity
OF nations-an age unequaled in all
the history OF the world, in skill and
inventive genius, and in mental, moral
and material elevation.