THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

To the labouring rustic of youthful years nothing is more attractive than the statute-hiring fairs, which take place at the chief agricultural centres at various times of year, but chiefly about Martinmas.  These fairs are rapidly losing a great deal of their picturesqueness which they had in the days when men and boys stood about in the streets or market-places bearing something to indicate their particular proficiencies – the shepherd his crook, the thresher his flail, the waggoner his whip.  Nowadays the servant-maids, dairymaids, and kitchen-wenches are usually assembled in some hall.. thus the fairs are robbed of one of their most picturesque features – the presence of labourers, male and female, literally waiting in the market-place until some man shall hire them.  Truth to tell, the ploughboy and the maidservant alike regard the statute-hiring fair as a day of amusement, and they will do their best to attend several before they finally take a new situation.  The side-shows, menageries, exhibitions of petrified men, sword-swallowers, and fat women attract them greatly.  The boys, too, are invariably attracted by the ballad-monger, from whom they buy new songs, which they will subsequently sing as they follow their horses across the land.

Fletcher/Yorkshire,1908