Now! Then! A journalist from Sporting Magazine in London buys a waistcoat at Ripon Fair

23 November 1826: A journalist from Sporting Magazine in London buys a waistcoat at Ripon Fair

Charles James Apperley (“Nimrod”). 1827. Nimrod’s Yorkshire Tour [2]. Sporting Magazine, Vol. 20 (New Series). London: Pittman. Get it:

Excerpt

It was fair-day at Ripon, and as I was never before at a Yorkshire fair, I thought I would see the humours of it, so put up my horse and strolled about the town. There was no lack of shows of giants and dwarfs, and enough to set the yokels staring; but what attracted my notice most was, two Yorkshire hawkers selling by auction waistcoats, ready made, in strong opposition to each other. They put them up at twenty shillings a-piece; but the moment the sum of eighteen pence was offered, down went the hammer. Fearful of approaching too near them – for their jokes were coarse – I gave a boy two shillings, and bade him purchase one for me, and keep the sixpence himself. This commission was presently executed, and I found myself in possession of an excellent waistcoat. Joking apart, as far as the use and end of a garment extend, it is an excellent waistcoat, and very warm, being doubly lined in the back. I know not whether many London tailors read the Sporting Magazine; but I know mine (Mr Green, of Regent Street) does, and I hope he will recollect the selling price of the Ripon waistcoat.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.
Abbreviations:

ER: East Riding
GM: Greater Manchester
NR: North Riding
NY: North Yorkshire
SY: South Yorkshire
WR: West Riding
WY: West Yorkshire

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Original

Thursday, 23d. Nothing to be done in the hunting way; so I got upon my hack, rode to Ripon, and thence to Studley Castle, the seat of Mrs. Laurence, and the grand lion of this part of the country. It was fair-day at Ripon; and as I was never before at a Yorkshire fair, I thought I would see the humours of it, so put up my horse and strolled about the town. There was no lack of shows of giants and dwarfs, and enough to set the yokels staring; but what attracted my notice most was, two Yorkshire hawkers selling by auction waistcoats, ready made, in strong opposition to each other. They put them up at twenty shillings a-piece; but the moment the sum of eighteen pence was offered, down went the hammer. Fearful of approaching too near them – for their jokes were coarse – I gave a boy two shillings, and bade him purchase one for me, and keep the sixpence himself. This commission was presently executed, and I found myself in possession of an excellent waistcoat. Joking apart, as far as the use and end of a garment extend, it is an excellent waistcoat, and very warm, being doubly lined in the back. I know not whether many London tailors read the Sporting Magazine; but I know mine (Mr. Green, of Regent-street) does, and I hope he will recollect the selling price of the Ripon waistcoat.

Ripon is celebrated in the annals of England for its manufactory of spur-rowels; and hence a brave man is called a man of mettle “of steel as true as Ripon rowels!” With the exception of a grand old Minster, I cannot say much for the town of Ripon; but it is situate in a fine country, and I should imagine a prosperous one, for on this day there were seventeen weddings at the parish church! Now, as the calculation is, that each wedding produces four children in due time, here will be an addition of above three score subjects to fill up the ranks of such as the tomb may swallow and who, after this, will be bold enough to assert, that one sort of manufacture is slack in the North?

375 words.