MERRY MAY DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 147, 22 June 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

MERRY MAY DAY.

.10V IN A SQfALID LONDON PARISH.

There may come a time when England shall be "Merrle England" once again— when even London Khali pause in Its grimy busy lifo to keep the Hr.st of May with feasting and revelry, dances and games. This is the belief of tho Rev. Cartniol) Robinson, vicar of Holy Trinity, Hoxton, and ou May Ist the children of his squalid parish kept the day as he thinks it should be kept. It is a good place to begin In, Is Hoxton; nuiTiinent does not often come its way. it is, its vicar thinks, the most sordid spot in London. It has none of the glamour, of the East End, no tali masts of ships peeping above the little houses, no sailormcu speak' ing strange tongues, with monkeys and merchandise from foreign parts. Only row upon row of mean streets with many pale-faced, narrow-chested children. There are 14,000 of them here In Hoxton— -4 children to every house is the average. There were 1400 of them in Tower Hamlcta Drill Hall on May. Ist, and every one was yelling. The vicar stood in the midst. He is a terrible fellow, this vicar. Six feet four he stands, and he has the voice of ft lion and the heart of a woman. He held tt. child with one hand; with the other he was lifting a piano. He was listening with both curb to childish questions, while he shouted directions to some girls in the matter ot step dancing. He straightened his back and drew a haud across a perspiring brow. •' I want," he said, "to teach these youngsters that life means happiness, aud uot merely a struggle for bread and butter. 1 want to teach them beauty with a sense for colour and form to give them a Greek edu- ' cation as far us may be, training the body equally with the mind. We do give them boxing aud swimming. "I want a merry lloxton. I got the idea from Green the historian, who wrote so much of merry England. He was once a curate here." Then a bugle rang out, and the vicar Instantly made order out of chaos. Children lv quaint, old-fashioned costumes made from goodness knows what by the vicar's wife danced around a maypole, singing old English songs. There was besides niorrlsdancing, games, and boxing. Eighteen hundred frail hands were clapping, 900 littie faces laughing.

And later they fared forth Into the streets, St. George, Robin Hood and his merrle men, all clothed In their divers raiment as in days of yore, and the May Queen with her maidens and many revellers rode In cars bravely decked with garlauds. And thousands of ragged children bore them company through the dingy streets. It was a merry time, a mad time, and for the children all too short. May It come again!