when jobbers pick up bargains.
In 1891 the fair was not, and is not now, what it once was, which recalls
the answer a witty editor of _Punch_ once made to a friend. Said the
said friend: "My dear fellow, _Punch_ is not so good as it used to be."
"No, it never was," came the quick rejoinder. But of Ballinasloe fair I
cannot say it never was, for a hundred years ago, in Peggy O'Dowd's time,
in the west of Ireland it was the great event of the year, not only for
the sale of flocks and herds, but also for social gatherings, fun and
frolic, so at least I am told by the oldest inhabitant. An older account
still, says these fairs were a time for games and races, pleasure and
amusement, and eating and feasting, whilst another record describes them
as places "where there were food and precious raiment, downs and quilts,
ale and flesh meat, chessmen and chess boards, horses and chariots,
greyhounds, and playthings besides." It is curious that dancing is not
mentioned, but dancing in the olden days in Ireland was not, I believe,
much indulged in. Eighty years ago over 80,000 sheep entered the fair,
and 20,000 cattle.

Arrived at Ballinasloe we established ourselves in quarters that were
part of the original station premises. These consisted of a good sized
dining-room, six bedrooms, and an office for the manager and his clerk.
The walls and ceilings of the rooms were sheeted with pitch pine and
varnished. They were very plainly furnished, the only thing in the way
of decoration being a production in watercolour representing a fair green
crowded with herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and adorned with sundry
pastoral and agricultural emblems, from the brush of my friend _Cynicus_.
This I framed and hung in the dining-room. As it had columns for
recording statistics of the fair for a period of years, it was
instructive as well as ornamental. Three of the bedrooms were on the
ground floor and were small apartments. The upstair rooms were much
larger, were situated in the roof, and were lit by skylight windows which
commanded a limited view of the firmament above but none whatever of the
green earth below. These upper rooms were reached by an almost
perpendicular staircase surmounted by a trap door, a mode of access
convenient enough for the young and active, but not suitable for those of
us who had passed their meridian. Two of these rooms were double-bedded
and all three led into each other. In the innermost, Atock, ou