England

his pleasures not sadly but resolutely. It is a holiday. He is out to enjoy himself. He will enjoy himself whatever the obstacles. There

e not of midsummer and not suitable to open-air holiday. But the East End was not to be deterred from merriment. "London's playground" was like a h

ct about the train's going was greeted with shouting laughter, and the "joke" went round a widening circle of rippling merriment. On the road, the coster's cart, loaded with Mr. and Mrs. Coster and a

culously gay. The oceans had been dredged and the earth rifled for the people's holiday. Shellfish of all sorts, bananas from the West Indies, plums from Spain, roses from Kent and Surrey, pine-apple tinned at Singapore, bright nacre shells from Australian beaches, littl

h hilarity. The Australian larrikin and his "donah" dance at "down the harbor" picnics with a fixed solemnity of face, as if performing some weird corybantic rite. The London coster and his girl are determinedly mer

-far worse sight-occasionally a girl the worse for drink, prompting the thought that if public opinion won't keep wome

e were more intellectual amusements. You might have your head read for a penny, your character diagnosed by your eye for the same sum

ull and Bush, the crackling laughter around all the booths and from all the crowde

aming sand on which blue waves break, showing their white teeth in smiles. The "beach" is just a flat, which at high tide the sea covers, to leave it at low tide a wide muddy expanse of marshy soil. But the seaside trippers make the best of it. The cliffs are thronged with happy picnickers. The beach is dotted with waders, who go out many hundreds of yards along the wet flat, and in some mysteri

g conditions. The Englishman does not hesitate to take his girl to the cemetery to court her. A London friend asked me, with real enthusiasm, to look at the "fine view" from his flat, and it

least think that he knows? Have not "society" novelists innumerable, from "Ouida" downwards, given us studies of English "society" people at play, making the h

asses. They refine on the methods, but the spirit is the same. At heart, the Englishman of all classes loves feasting and boisterous jollity. Education and breeding may modify his tastes, but they are still there. Au fond, the typical Englishman l

me significance, too, was the ready, popular acquiescence in the change. Crowds that had been for years regaled on such occasions with broad pantomime, all fun and levity, were faced of a sudden with serious drama-soldiers in glittering mail, still more impressive soldiers in uniforms of the colour of earth; Boy Scouts playing at being soldiers and enjoying the most wholesome game; war paraphernalia of wagons and field telegraphs and field hospitals, and guns of all kinds, from the great mastiff siege-guns drawn by eight horses, which the Navy taught the Army to make mobile, down to the vicious little terrier p

ET AT

istic and witty they are going to go down. It is the Philistinism of England that proves her national strength and sanity." I reassured him by telling him that most of the statues erected in England nowadays were those of men in trousers, and we were comforted to think that there was still enough of Philistinism in England to keep her safe and sound. But it does look as though the Englishman were losing his enjoyment of primitive humour when he vetoes Gog and Magog on Lord Mayor's Day. Also he begins to live in hote

still our tard

r in base

ite of surface imitations the deeper differences

ays-a happy and wholesome movement-to revive the festivities of May Day, which once was the great festival of the country

trees and adorn them with nosegays and crowns of flowers; when this is done they return homewards about the rising of the sun and make their doors and windows to triumph with their flowery spoils and the after part of the day is chiefly spent

describes closely the brin

and branches of trees to deck their assemblies withal. But their chiefest jewel they bring thence is the Maie pole which they bring home with great veneration as thus-they have twentie to fortie yoake of oxen, every oxe having a sweet nosegaie of flowers tied to the top of his horns, and these oxen draw home the Maypoale which they covered a

Day was sometimes accompanied by a kind of historical pageant. This is from

e shot again, their arrows whistled by craft of the head, so that the noise was strange and great and much pleased the company. All these archers were of the King's guard and had thus apparelled themselves to make solace to the King. Then Robin Hood desired the King and Queen to come into the green wood and to see how the outlaws live. The King demanded of the Queen and her ladies if they durst venture to go into the wood with so many outlawes. Then the Queen said that if it pleased him she was content, then the horn

incidents of the time of the South African War, when the evening newspaper contents bills showed that there was a keener attraction for coppers in news of the cricket matches than in news of the campaign. But even these serious-minded people themselves probably have often bought a paper w

uld never be uprooted without making some vital change in the

he world such a nice sense of manly honour. "Give him a sporting chance" means that you must take no unfair advantage of an enemy. "Tak

all, or rowing? On that hinges the degree of his greatness in his world's estimation for quite a number of years. Cricket is, on the whole, the most important. To be a classic bat, to be a deadly slow bowler, or a still more deadly fast bowler-that is greatness for the young man. The cricket matches between the great public sc

t of sports largely. There is golf. "If you find that golf interferes with your business, give up your business," runs a popular gibe. It accentuates, without misrepresenting acutely, the attitude taken up by very m

ne definition of the English is, "a horse-racing nation"; and wherever an English town is built in any part of the world it will have a race-course almost as soon as it has a church and a school. The various race-meetings throug

during the summer-yachting, skiff-rowing, punting, or canoeing. Hunting is mostly the sport of the well-to-do, though an otter-h

n a time I remember going out into the yard of a little village public-house on the Monaro (Australia) and seeing chained up in the yard a fox. I stopped to ask why, and the groom told me of an English tourist who had also inquired as to the fox, and who had learned inc

G ON THE ITC

as "sport." They are the growth of the recent times of great fortunes, and scarcely a wholesome sign,

note: the Englishman, for all his present sports, is hospitable to welcome others, and often takes them up to excel in them. In flying, for instance, the Englishman is beginning now to take a pla

orse. Badly treated by the weather, the "First Flying Meeting in England" faced an outlook which was not too cheerful. Over a sodden ground a grey sky lowered threateningly, and gusty winds, blowing hither and thither, threatened storms. Th

d to take the stage when the call-bell rang. Devout prayers were muttered for the day when aviation would be as common in England as trick-cycling and stout, bejewelled promoters of flying meetings would lounge haughtily in front of a long queue of humble applicants for a chance to appear, and country hotel-keepers would, with most particular care, exact payment in advance f

The one soars and swoops and skims actually like a bird, the other progresses with scientific and mathematical precision. One might imagine a respectable barn-door fowl brood-mother, resting a while after the arduous labours of the pheasant season, speculating dismally on the prospects of

o learn to throw the javelin and the discus farther than any one else; and I believe that a section of him will accept the direction to do this and do it quite earnestly. So the Englishman who practises at football, cricket, hunting, sailing, rowing, fis