Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1904 — OLD TIMES REVIVED [ARTICLE]

OLD TIMES REVIVED

Picturesque Fcene nt a Hiring Fair in England. There was a picturesque survival of old times at the Michaelmas hiring fair at High Wycombe recently. In Buckinghamshire old customs die hard, and the fair is now as popular ns ever among agricultural laborers und farm servants seeking employment. Early In the morning the old market place bore an animated appearance. From various parts of Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Middlesex farm wagons and brakes containing men and women candidates, attired In their Sunday clothes, drove up amid a scene of bustle thaf may liaye been strange to many. A few more of the more modern rode bicycles. There were youths of both sexes trying to improve their position or their wages, and even aged tollers of CO strove —and with considerable success, too —to prove that they were more valuable as farm hands than the more youthful of their competitors, and worth more to other masters than their present masters imagined. A large number continued the ancient practice of indicating their calling by wearing a distinctive badge or ornament In their caps. For instance, plowmen and others who understand horses wors little knots of plaited whipcord; cowmen displayed tufts of hair and tenders of sheep wore bunches of wool and carried in their pockets their records of the percentage of lambs from ewes under their care last season. Masters and men bargained during most of the morning, and as each man was engaged he adorned himself with streamers of trlcolored ribbon, and proceeded to the pleasure fair to spend the rest of the day amid the swings and roundabouts. —London Express.