IF I WERE KING.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 202, 24 August 1904, Page 3

IF I WERE KING.

! Under the title "If I Were King"' Jerome K. Jerome contrihuies some racy comments on carnival time in tbe "More 1 Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow,' , which I lie is writing in "M.A.P." ''One of the iirst things 1 should take in hand, were j European affairs handed over to my con- ! trol," he says, "would be the re-arrange- '; ment of the Carnival, or. as just lately, I the -Mid-Lent business. As matters are, I the Carnival takes place all over Europe I in February. At 2s ice. in Spain, or iv ! Italy, it may be occasionally possible to feel you want to dunct: about the I streets in thin costume during Februj ary. But in more northern countries ! during Carnival time 1 have seen only I one sensible masker; he was a, man who j had got himself up as a diver. It was in Antwerp. The rain was pouring down in torrents; a cheery, boisterous, John Ball sort of an east wind was blustering j through the streets at the rate of fifteen I mile , ? an hour. Pierrots, with frozen i hands, were blowing blue noses. An elderly Cupid had borrowed an umbrella ! from a cafe and was waiting for a tram. A very little (levii \va,s eiying with the cold, and wiping his eye? with the end ■of his. own tail. Kvery doorway was i crowded with shivering maskers. The I diver alone walked erect, the water streaming from him. February is not the month for open-air masquerading. ' The "confetti, , which have come to be : nothing but coloured paper out into , small discs, are. a sodden mags. When : a. lump of it strikes you in the eye, your '' instinct is not to laugh gaily, but to 1 find out the man who threw it and to hit him back. This is not the true, spirit of Carnival. The marvel is that, in spite ; of the: almost invariably adverse weather, these Carnivals still continue. In Belgium, where Catholicism still remains the dominant, religion. Carnival I maintains itself stronger than elsewhere I in Northern Europe. At one small town, : Binche, near the French bonier, it holds uninterrupted sway for throe, days and two nights, during which time the whole of the population, swelled by visitors I from twenty miles round, shouts, romps, ' eats and drinks and dances. After ■ which the visitors are packed like sarj dines into railway trains. They pin their t:ckets to their and promptly go to .sleep. At every station the ; railway officials stumble up airi down the trains with Innterns. The last feeble effort of the more wakeful reveljler, before he adds himself to the heap j of snoring humanity on the floor of the i railway carriage, is to change the tickets of a couple of bis unconscious companions. In this way. gentlemen for the east are dragged out by the legs at junctions, and packed into trains going west; while southern fathers are shot out in the chill drtwn at lonely northern stations, to find themselves greeted with enthusiasm by other people's families. At Binche. they say —I have not counted them myself—that fbirty thousand maskers pan be seen dancing at, the same time. When they are not dancing they are throwing oranges at one another. The houses board up their windows. The restaurants take down their mirrors and hide away the glasses. If I were masquerading at Binche I should go as a man in armour, period Henry the Seventh. 'Doesn't it hurt' I asked a lady who had been there, "having oranges thrown at you? Which sort do they use, speaking generally, those fine, juicy ones— Javas I think you call tlipm—or the little, hard brand with skin- like a nut-' I meg grater? And, if both sort.s are lused indiscriminately, which do you i personally prefer?' "The smart people.' ! she answered, .'they are the .--aTiie everywhere—they must be extravagant —they use the Java orange. If it bits you in the back I prefer the Java, orange. Of course, it's more messy than the other, but it does not leave behind it that curioue sensation of having been temporarily sfcunaed. Most people, of coerae.

make use of the small, hard orange. If . you duck in time, and so catch it on the top of your head, it does not hurt so much as you would think. If, of course, it hits you on a tender place—well, myl self, I always find that a little sal vola- ! tile, with old cognac —half and half, you I understand—is about the best thing. But iit only happens once a year,' she added."