Barnet lies two miles ahead, crowning a ridge. Between this point and that town the road goes sharply down Prickler’s Hill, and, passing under a railway bridge, climbs upwards again, along an embanked road that, steep though it be, takes the place of a very much steeper roadway. It was constructed between 1823 and 1827, as a part of the general remodelling of the Holyhead Road. The deserted old way, now leading no-whither, may be seen meandering off to the left, immediately past the railway bridge, down in the hollow. Passing the “Old Red Lion” and a row of old houses that, fallen from their importance in facing the high road, look dejectedly across one-half of the Fair Ground, it comes to an end at the last house, whose projecting bay proclaims it to have once been a toll-house.

Barnet is famous for two things: for its Battle and for its Fair. The Battle is a thing of the dim and distant past: the Fair belongs to the present—the poignant present, as you think who venture within ear-shot of its Michaelmas hurly-burly, what time the horse-copers are rending the air with raucous cries, steam-organs bellowing, and, in fact, “all the fun of the Fair” in progress. It is, according to your taste and to the condition of your nerves, a pleasure or a martyrdom to be present at the great Fair of Barnet: that three days’ Pandemonium to which come all the lowest of the low, whom, paradoxically enough, that “noble animal, the friend of man,” attracts to himself. For Barnet is, above all other things, a Horse Fair. For love of the Horse, and with the hope of selling horses—and incidentally swindling the purchasers of them—such widely different characters as the horsey East-ender, the sly and crafty Welshman, the blarneying Irishman, and Sandy from Scotland, come greater or smaller distances with droves of cart-horses, cobs, hunters, and, in fact, every known variety of the Noble Animal; and to this nucleus of a Fair innumerable other trades attach themselves, like parasites. Barnet Fair dates back to the time of Henry II. It is, therefore, of a very respectable antiquity. This antiquity is, indeed, the only respectable thing left to it. The rest is riot; and if the Barnet people had their will, there is little doubt that it would, in common with many other fairs, be abolished. When originally established, by Royal Charter, it lasted three weeks. From three weeks it was successively whittled down, in course of time, to sixteen days, and then to three days. From it, in other times, the Lord of the Manor, the Earl of Stratford, derived a splendid revenue; for his tolls, rigorously exacted by his stewards, were eightpence for every bull or stallion entering the Fair; fourpence for every horse, ass, or mule; and for every cow or calf, twopence.

The Fair Ground extends to either side of the long embankment, on whose steep slope the high road is carried up into Barnet Town; but the chief part of it centres around High Barnet station, on the right hand. The Fair begins on the first Monday in September, but at least a week before that date Barnet town and the roads leading into it, usually so quiet, are thronged with droves of horses and herds of cattle, and with the caravans of the showmen who hope to “make a good thing” out of the thousands of visitors to the Fair. Whatever private residents in Barnet may think of it, and however much they would like to see it abolished, its lasting success is assured as a popular holiday for certain classes of Londoners. The typical ’Arry of Hendon or of Epping would no more think of not visiting Barnet Fair than he would think of abstaining from deep drinking when he reached the place. For, now that all other fairs within reach of London have been suppressed, this is pre-eminently the Cockney’s outing. To deprive him of it would savour not a little of cruelty: it would certainly cut off from the travelling showmen and the proprietors of the giddy steam roundabouts a goodly portion of their incomes, while the pickpockets would miss one of the greatest chances in the year.

Let those who know of fairs only from idyllic descriptions of such things in the England of long ago, visit this of Barnet. Nothing in it is poetic, unless indeed the language common to those who attend upon the Noble Animal may be so considered; and certainly that is full of imagery, of sorts. It is wonderful what a power of debauching mankind the Horse possesses. Your ordinary cattle-drover is no saint, but he is a Bayard and a carpet-knight beside these fellows with straws in their mouths, and novel and vivid language on their tongues.

Here, as side-shows away from the horses, are the boxing-booths, the swings, and the trumpet-tongued merry-go-rounds, roaring like Bulls of Bashan and glittering with Dutch metal and cheap mirrors like Haroun-al-Raschid’s palace just come out of pawn and much the worse for wear. Ladies clad in purple velvet dresses, and with a yard and a half of ostrich feather in their hats patronise these delights; and lunch oleaginously on the fried fish cooking on a stall near by (which by the way, you may scent a quarter of a mile off). For those with nicer tastes, an itinerant confectioner makes sweets on the spot. For those who are sportively inclined there are several methods of dissipating their money: by shooting at bottles; shying at cocoanuts (all warranted milky ones) or by guessing under which of three thimbles temporarily resides the elusive pea. The furtive and nervous young man who presides over this show is more than itinerant. Ghostlike, he flits from group to group, harangues them with a phenomenal glibness and swiftness: discloses the pea under the other thimble; takes his gains, and so departs: the tail of his eye seeking, and hoping not to find, any one who may chance to be a detective. An ancient—a million times exposed—fraud, and still a very remunerative one!

For the rest, a very vulgar and disheartening show to those who preach culture to whom the cultured term “the masses.” How to leaven the lump in that direction when you find it obstinately set upon such gross things of earth as penny shows, including six-legged calves and realistic scenes of the latest murders? Sons of Belial, indeed, are those who find delight herein: and many are they who do so take their pleasure.