Home from Hampton Court Races

An illustration from 'London: a Pilgrimage' by Blanchard Jerrold and Gustave Doré, 1872. In chapter XX Jerrold writes of 'London at Play', including the following description: 'A few carts loaded with holiday-makers travelling from the East End to Hampton Court races, or returning thence, afford a good illustration of the way in which the lower class of London work-folk love to amuse themselves. To them play means coarse jests, practical joking of a very brutal kind - all copiously covered with beer and tobacco. Observe this cartload of hawkers, who are fixed between an omnibus and a carriage. It is a golden opportunity, dear to the heart of the Whitechapel rough. He falls upon the gentleman who wears a white hat, and tells him to take care of the lady. He exhausts his humour upon the groom - criticising every item of his livery. Everbody is "governor". He calls upon each passer-by whom he detects with bottle or pocket pistol, to give him a drink; recommends every horseman to get up inside; asks a gentleman of particularly dignified air whether the "missus" is quite well, and generally conducts himself with a levity, the spirit of which is closely akin to that of undergraduates on their great holiday.'