led with revellers, annually
make their progress into Hainault Forest. They go no longer, alas! to
Fairlop Oak--for that is numbered with the things of the past--but now
to Barking side, where, at the Maypole Inn, the festivities of Fairlop
Fair are still kept up.

These ship and boat cars attract immense multitudes along the Mile End,
Bow, and Whitechapel Roads, down as far as Aldgate; the crowd assemble
in the morning to see the holiday people start on their expedition. The
most remarkable sight, however, is at night, when the "boats" return
lighted with coloured lanterns, red and green fires, &c.; and at every
public-house along the road similar fires are burnt, and brass bands
stationed to strike up as the cars pass, and stop at certain favoured
establishments "for the good of the house." Anxious to witness the
fading glories of Fairlop Friday myself, before the advancing tide of
civilization shall have done their inevitable work upon them, I sallied
forth to the East End, and walking along one of the finest approaches to
London, from Aldgate, by Whitechapel, to Bow and Stratford Churches,
succeeded in realizing more completely than ever before two facts:
first, how gigantic is the population of the East End of London; and,
secondly, how little is required to amuse and attract it. There were
only two of the "boats" sent to the Forest that year. Their return could
gratify the sight of these people but for a single instant; yet there,
from early dusk almost to succeeding daylight, those working men,
literally "in their thousands"--and not in the Trafalgar Square
diminutive of that expression--gathered to gratify themselves with the
sight of the pageant. In comparison, the "Boeuf Gras," which annually
sends the gamins of Paris insane, is really a tasteful and refined
exhibition. Yet there they were, women, men, and children--infants in
arms, too, to a notable extent--swarming along that vast thoroughfare,
boozing outside the public-houses, investing their pence in
"scratch-backs" and paper noses, feathers and decorations, as do their
betters on the course at Epsom, under the feeble excuse of "waiting for
the boats." The first arrived en retour at Stratford Church about ten
o'clock; and certainly the appearance of the lumbering affair as it
moved along, with its rigging brought out by means of coloured fires,
lanterns, and lamps, was odd enough. As soon as it passed me at
Stratford, I jumped outside one of the Bow and S