In the center of the field was a space for the band, and around it a platform. Much money had been subscribed for the feast, but the committee felt sure that large numbers of people would be ready to pay from seventy-five cents to one dollar and a half for the privilege of walking about on this platform and seeing what was to be seen. They were right, for there was "a most fashionable and select company," who promenaded around the circular platform and watched the feasters.
Sixty tables, each two hundred and thirty feet long, stretched out from the central platform like the rays of a star; and when the signal was given, the fourteen thousand persons, poor people and children of all ages, marched to their places. It must have been an amusing procession for each one was obliged to bring his own plate, knife, fork, and mug for beer. There was roast beef, and there were various other good things; but the member of the committee who wrote the account of the dinner seems to have been especially interested in the puddings. "Beautiful puddings," he says they were, and he tells just where each one was boiled. He states, too, that 2475 pounds of raisins were put into them.
At the end of the dinner, pipes, tobacco, and snuff were passed to the grown folk. There was a salute of nineteen guns in honor of the Queen's nineteen years. A balloon, which the enthusiastic committeeman calls a "stupendous machine," was sent up, and the health of the Queen was drunk. The Sunday-school children sang a song of better intention than rhyme, which began:
"Victoria! Victoria! We hail thy gentle rule; Victoria! the Patroness Of every Sunday school."
After the singing, came various games and contests. Men tried to climb a well-soaped pole to get a leg of mutton which was fastened to the top. Others were tied into sacks, and jumped as far as possible in the attempt to win a pair of boots. There was a wheelbarrow race run by ten blindfolded men. A pig was offered to the man who could catch the animal and swing it over his shoulder by the well-greased tail. Men grinned through horse-collars to see who could make the ugliest face and so win a pair of new trousers. Six boys with their hands tied behind their backs were given penny loaves and molasses, and a new hat was waiting for the one who ate his loaf first. Other boys with their hands tied were "bobbing for apples"--that is, trying to lift apples with their teeth from a tub of water--and another group of boys were struggling to see who could first swallow a pennyworth of dry biscuit, and so win a new waistcoat. There were foot races and donkey races and hurdle races, and races among men each with one leg tied up. At last the day came to an end with fireworks, and all the happy, tired people went home, fully convinced that under this new sovereign their country would be more prosperous than ever.