3-039-218 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Eve of the Derby, 1871. 'The annual summer meeting of English horse-lovers [ie the Derby Stakes, for three-year-old colts and fillies], on the breezy downs of Epsom [in Surrey] is nigh at hand...[Our illustration shows one of] the scenes usually to be witnessed a few hours earlier than "the great event,"...The gathering of a motley multitude of people - men, women, and children - intending to earn, or to beg, or perhaps to steal, or to gain by cheating, or to win by any means whatever, a few shillings from the careless and unwary, whose pockets are better filled...Many hundreds lie that night upon the ground, some in gipsy tents, or in waggons, or under their carts and barrows, some in the open air without shelter. It is rather too cold for this bivouac on the Downs, in such a May as we feel this year. Sometimes it is wet; stormy rain, and even snow, have been experienced not seldom in that exposed and lofty situation. But the encampment will nevertheless take place; the booths and tents will be pitched, the bundles will be opened, the fires of sticks will be kindled, and the kettle will be heated for tea, coffee, or grog'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.