THE HOLIDAY OF THE 'TWENTY-FIFTH.
MONDAY last was characterized by a dawn of pleased expectation and good feeling, by an evening of universal disappointment, with something worse than disappointment in countless numbers of cases. The Queen's eldest daughter was to be married; a certain sympathy with mother and daughter was the feeling of the whole people. So great a marriage merited a general holiday, and though none had been formally ordered by the Government, the day was kept almost universally in town and country. As the sun brightened, immense multitudes went forth to enjoy themselves ; they strayed. hither and thither, or concentrated in huge masses, to see little in a few fleeting minutes. Standing tires, waiting is tedious; there are no places of rest or recreation ready provided for our town-living countrymen unassociated with the drinking of intoxicating liquids; many sought amusement and support under weariness from the spirit-bottle or beer-tub, and multitudes who had come out happy and in harmony with the spirit of the day, and full of life, returned disappointed, ashamed, and listless. In London they givea bad account of the behaviour of the popu- lace as compared with the Peace day,—partly, no doubt, because the working classes are not so well oft' now. They give a still worse account in Scotland ; and we do not suppose that the popu- Ions towns in England presented any virtuous contrast. The failure of the holiday has prompted complaints that no shows were provided for the people. If they could not see a wedding in the Chapel Royal, the outer procession might have made a greater circuit. Fireworks might have enlightened the evening, or a formal order for the general holiday might have instructed the municipal authorities to invent some . plans of amusement. Now this is an invention often demanded of municipal authorities, but they always prove as little apt at it as the people themselves. Our illumination was, on Monday last, as it always is, distin- guished by no invention save in the mechanical resources of bril- liancy and plenty. The inscriptions were platitudes, and as little unrelieved by variety as the fireworks of the Peace day. The experiences of last Monday are against general holidays. Indeed, that which is play to some is death to others ; for in stopping the work it stops the wages of the poorest, and gives no feast in re- turn, except the paltry increase to the workhouse allowance. We have no " subventions" for theatres, and not enough the- atres to hold the people if we had. Holiday-making is much better left to local self-government, or even to more perfect free- dom of trade. Towns, families, bodies of workmen, can in our country., best choose their holiday, the time to keep it, and where to spend it. Some trades, such as that of printers, make it an annual custom. Some factory-owners acknowledge the duty of the employer to the employed in providing entertainment for their "hands." But all these amusements, bestowed by those above to those below, are apt to degenerate either into the idle profusion of mere " treating ' or into the still more pedantic absurdity of a didactic amusement. For such amusement as we seek in holiday loses its very spirit and essence as soon as it becomes didactic. All the " evils " which have been brought to notice within the last few years by the awkward attempts of our Million to make its holiday only spring from "the state of society." We are crowding the town, and making the country as much as possible like one great town ; yet we build our towns as if they were only to be provisional residences' not our permanent condition. Our furniture of life, like that bought at some great emporiums, is ill-constructed, cheap, and nasty ; and. the generations bred in ill-contrived towns really do not know what to do with them- selves when they are turned loose from the routine of life. Living always on the contract system, they are at sea when the contract is suspended. We have arranged for work-day existence' and. for the sad business of life ; but we have not yet got to that com- plete state which results in planning for our recreation. That this arises from "the state of society," the scapegoat for all our blunders, we may learn by the complaints from the United States—even from the race that commands ocean streams and prairies, complains of over-work, grows dyspeptic, dresses itself out with starched linen and pomade, and seeks ite recreation in hot rooms and billiards. Society has not .yet gone through the artificial stage to perfect Art, which brings man back to Nature. It is not that mankind has become artificial. The tender scene in the Chapel Royal at the time of the mar- riage, the sympathy between the royal group in the Palace- balcony and the mob below, showed that some inborn in- fluences are immortal. It is "a great fact" that the highest powers with which we are intrusted over each other, are to be sought in those higher passions which master ourselves. He com- mands most who suffers most—a truth which we might carry up to a sublime exemplar ; and God-made nature is more powerful than man-made art—a truth which on occasion makes its electric power felt from the palace to the hovel.
We never notice an evil without asking, Where is the " reme- dy "? It is thought almost rude to do it; yet until we recognize the evil we can scarcely look about for the remedy. It is useless to invent and octroi improved states of society. The most we can hope to do is by keeping a sharp look-out, to catch some day a glimpse of the principle which is at the bottom of our present mis- take; for correlative with that would be the principle of a better state of things. So, if we talk about the bad modes in which we build our towns, drain them, teach our children, shut off one part of social- from another, neglect in selfish exclusiveness the comfort and welfare of the classes below us, and make even our amuse- ments selfish—perhaps if we talk about these things, the blessed, light may some day break in upon us, the dawn of better working arrangements, "short time," and general holidays.
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