CHAPTER I. 

In which the history opens with a description of the social manners,
habits, and amusements of the English People, as exhibited in an
immemorial National Festivity.--Characters to be commemorated in the
history, introduced and graphically portrayed, with a nasological
illustration.--Original suggestions as to the idiosyncrasies
engendered by trades and callings, with other matters worthy of
note, conveyed in artless dialogue after the manner of Herodotus,
Father of History (mother unknown). 

It was a summer fair in one of the prettiest villages in Surrey.  The
main street was lined with booths, abounding in toys, gleaming crockery,
gay ribbons, and gilded ginger bread.  Farther on, where the street
widened into the ample village-green, rose the more pretending fabrics
which lodged the attractive forms of the Mermaid, the Norfolk Giant; the
Pig-faced Lady, the Spotted Boy, and the Calf with Two Heads; while high
over even these edifices, and occupying the most conspicuous vantage-
ground, a lofty stage promised to rural playgoers the "Grand Melodramatic
Performance of The Remorseless Baron and the Bandit's Child." Music,