Letter #12, Post #5

Monday 14 August 2012
To Cassandra, from Steventon, "The ball on Thursday was a very small one indeed, hardly so large as an Oxford smack. There were but seven couples, and only twenty-seven people in the room." - Jane Austen, Sunday 25 November 1798

This would have been the ball at Basingstoke that she mentioned in letter number eleven.
http://allthings-jane-austen.blogspot.com/2012/06/letter-11-post-6.html

The Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary gives a definition of the word smack as: a small quantity. James and Henry both attended Oxford. Maybe this was a term she had heard from them and knew Cassandra would know what she was referring to.

The balls at Baskingstoke were held in the upper rooms of the Town Hall in the Market Place. This is a drawing of what the Town Hall would have looked like in Jane Austen's time.

I hope you enjoyed your day today.
Terrie