Punch (64.1873)

Mat 3, 1873.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

181

before said about the perfect legality of these contributions, and
he emphatically condemned the raising money for Chaeles the
Seventh. Let us leave the Spaniards to knock one another about
as they please, and to sing, if they choose, with Sib Walteb,

" The time shall come round

"When, mid Lords, Dukes, and Earls,
The loud trumpets shall sound—

* Here's a health to King Chaeles !' "

It was then proposed to go on with the Budget, and the first
grievance was that of the Brewers. After debate Mb, Gladstone
said something which the chief malcontent liberally interpreted into
a promise to deal with the Brewers' licence question very soon. Me.
Gladstone replied with a neat shake of the head, which meant
that he gave no such promise. We discussed the Budget at great
length, but there were no divisions. Me. Lowe resembles Midas
in one particular only. Everything he touches (except matches)
he turns into gold. But he certainly has not the ears of which
Tommy Moobe wrote so cleverly :—

" But worse on the modern judge, alas,

Was the sentence launched from Apollo's throne,
For to Midas were given the ears of an ass,
While H—nl—t was doomed to keep his own."

Friday.—Teste the Mabqtjis oe Lansdowne, we have as terrible
Breech-Loading big guns as any nation in the world, or a little
terribler.

Some fools in Nottingham stuck up a Republican placard. The
Chief Constable of the County, happening to see it, instinctively poked
his stick through it and destroyed it. 'Tis a sign of the times that
a gentleman in the House of Commons could complain of this, and
a worse sign that Me. Bbtjce, Heb Majesty's Home Secretary,
could stand up and condemn the Constable's course. In this dis-
play of pedantic timidity, Mb. Bbtjce showed that he had forgotten,
if he ever knew, the rale of law, that every man becomes a Constable
when he sees an offence committed. However, the loyal officer is
not to be dismissed this time, a public reprimand for being
incensed at an insult to his Queen being held sufficient by Heb
Majesty's Government.

Attention was called to the case of an Irish Editor who has been
imprisoned for contempt of Court. The incident was interesting
only as showing how utterly impossible it is to get truth in an Irish
case. Sie John Gbay, a man of honour, had been informed by
those who had asked him to complain, that the prisoner was con-
fined in a room without a fire. This would have made out a cruelty.
" It is true," said Loed Habtington, " for the cell is warmed with
hot-water pipes." Ninety-nine Oirish grievances are of this kind.

Supply again, but nothing amusing. A Ministerial speaker men-
tioned, as matter of congratulation, that there were a third fewer
vagrants in the Metropolitan Wards than this time last year. This
is rather a narrow way of lookiDg at the matter—the vagrants
must be somewhere, and the National Ratepayer must be charged
to " comprehend all vagrom men."

good novel or an unexpected legacy, are amongst the purest pleasures
PUNCH'S FOLK-LORE. that fall to the lot of those who are not insensible to the charms of

_ _ nature, and the solid advantages of a landed estate in the Midland

MAY-DAT. Counties.

T » Much might be written about the May-pole and its many endear-

, E many m?re .ot tne ! ing associations, but, as Parliament is sitting, we have only room to
great anniversaries in our 1

modern year—Lady-Day,

Lord Mayor's Day, Michael-

mas-Day,Midsummer-Day,
&c.—May-Day, the darling
theme of every poet from
Chatjceb to Gowee, the
favourite subject for the
painter's pencil, the sculp-
tor's chisel, and the musi-
cian's grand piano, exercises
a mysterious influence over
events and circumstances
subsequent to it in time
and date, according to the
day of the week on which
it falls. If the First of
May falls on a Sunday,
there will be more mar-
riages in the ensuing year
between bachelors and
spinsters than between
spinsters and widowers ;
if it happens on a Monday,
the hens will lay through
the summer; if it occurs on
a Tuesday, the silkworms
should be looked to ; if it takes place on a Wednesday, the black-
thorn will be in flower before the white-thorn; if, as this year, it
recurs on Thursday, heavy rain may be expected after sunset; if it
has the ill-luck to be contemporary with a Friday, all the goslings
will not grow up to be geese ; and if Saturday is May-Day, search
should^ be made for a purse of money in growing grass, before the
ash is in full leaf.

Provided the weather is genial, and there is no snow lying on the
ground, and the wind is not in the East, and overcoats and sealskin
jackets can be safely left in their respective wardrobes, and the last
cold in the head has taken its farewell flight, the annual return of
the month of May, with all its associations and Meetings, awakens
recollections of home and youth and days gone by, of country

enunciate one or two of its leading features. The last Census
showed that May-poles were still to be found lingering in thirteen
of the fifty-two counties into which England and Wales are mapped
out, resembling, in this particular, the hebdomadal divisions ot the
year. But incomplete returns were received from Dunstable,
Hendon, Mile End, Macclesfield, Nantwich, West Drayton, Wigan,
and the Isle of Wight.

The descendants of the last surviving citizen and cordwainer,
who remembered looking out of his oriel window, and seeing the
Corporation of London dancing to the music of tabor and pipe and
the merry clash of the parish bells, round the May-pole which for-
merly reared its lofty head ("high as the mast of some tall
ammiral") on the verdant sward of Cornhill, are still to be found
pursuing their usual avocations; and tradition to this day (April
26th) fondly clings to the memory of that buoyant, light-hearted
Under-Sheriff, who specially distinguished himself by the way in
which he executed agalliard on the steps of the old Royal Exchange,
before business hours, "in the merry month of May " (Shakspeabe
or Baenfield), long, long ago.

Much, too, might be said of Chimney Sweeps and Milkmaids, and
their participation in the mirth and merriment of May Day ; of
Queen Elizabeth going a-May ing with Bacon and Btjbleigh ; of
the Oxford Choristers, who ascend the fair tower of Magdalen at
sunrise to ting their May-morn carol; of the arrival of the May-
flower on the shores of New England; and of May Moons, May
Marriages, May meetings, and May cleanings. ("For those old
Mays had thrice the life of these."—Tennyson.) But the fullest
details on all such topics may be found in the papers and transac-
tions of those Societies (see, especially, the years 1811, 1826,
1834—5 — 6—7, and 1861, and the Supplement and Appendix) which
cast the segis of their protection over the manners and customs of a
time growing every day more and more remote from our own
bustling age, and destined, perhaps before the next decennial
Census, to fade away altogether into the vista of the illimitable
past.

Boon to Boniface.

The recruits of the 1st Surrey Militia were, last year, instead of
rambfesTnd fresh-laid eggs and new-mad7butter! in^the" Lios^rToi j being billeted in public-houses, placed under canvass in the barrack-

the most hardened political economist, in the breast of the most cal- | yard of experiment. 1 his experiment was found to answer

culating statist, and in the heart of the most impassive woman of 80 wel1 ha* bee,n T&V>^ted this year, and the men are now

the world. To listen to the song of the thrush, the nightingale, the encamped at Richmond. The step of lodging Militiamen m tents,
wryneck, the grosbeak, the hedge-warbler, and all the other princi- lf a£ai? successful, will perhaps be adopted as a permanent and not
pal performers in the feathered orchestra; to gather the daisy, the a merely tentative arrangement,
daffodil, the lesser celandine, the polyanthus, and the periwinkle,
in " the flowery meads of May; " to watch the harmless gambols of
the squirrel, the cricket, the field-mouse, and the grasshopper ; and
to sally forth, with the first beams of the rising sun on May-Day
morning, with the avowed object of washing the face in dew, and
returning home, heavily laden with odorous branches of perfumed
blossom, to a comfortable home and nice breakfast—these, next to a

A Vast Domain.

A fbiend and Total Abstainer, who has hitherto been a great ad-
mirer of Milton, feels his faith in that poet somewhat shaken, on
finding that he refers to the " Empire of Negus," without one single
word of disapproval.