MOTHERS' DAY.
[To THE EDITOR 07 THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—I hope some of your correspondents will call attention to the suggestion which has been made that "Mothers' Day" should be instituted in this country. "Mothering Sunday," or Simnel Day, is, I believe, older than the Reformation. Before that a visit to the Mother Church was required. Later all lads and lasses in service, at least in the Midlands, were granted a holiday on Mid Lent Sunday to visit their family house and their mothers and to take them cakes, hence Simnel cakes. I am sorry only to be able to give the tradition "as our fathers (in this case mothers) have told us," nor do I know how old the pretty proverb which gave the title to a charming story-book, "Who goes a-mothering finds violets in the lane," is. It might also suggest that the violet is a more suitable type of home-loving woman- hood than the narcissus, with its alien legend. I first heard of "Mothering Sunday" at Stratford-on-Avon.--I am,
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