OLD CUSTOMS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10301, 4 November 1911, Page 1

OLD CUSTOMS.

Persistently Adneroi To la Europs. - ("New York Press.") In Europe there is, perhaps, nothing more astonishing to the American mind than the persistency with which cqrtain old customs are maintained. Tho Romans, for instance, keep up the saturnalia of the ancient pagan ancestors in a harmless way, and tho Florentines go one morning of the year to catch crickets in tho grass simply because th© Etruscans did the same thing 2000 years ago. Wljen Bi&narck, during tho term of his mission as Ambassador at Petersburg, was walking one afternoon in the summer garden he mot the Emperor, who invited, the diplomat' to continue his stroil with him. Soon Bismarck noticed a sentry stationed in tho middlo of a large grass plot. He asked what tho soldier was, doing there. Tho Cr.ar did not know. The aide-de-camp did not know. So inquiry was made of the sentry himself. "It is ordered,'' was the reply. Every official gave tho samo answer, " It is ordered," but nobody knew by whom. A sentry had always stood guard in the middle of that innocent grass plot. TUB ARCHIVES WERE SEAROnED, but in vain. Finally an aged "official was found who gave the explanation. He had had it from his father that the Empress Catherine had once Keen a snowdrop ready to bioom in that plot ; and had ordered a sentry to stand fuard and allow no one to pluck it. 'or more than a century tho watch had been maintained because "it was ordered," and because no ono had over dreamed of disobeying the order or Sectioning anyone as to the reason erefor. The inflexibility of Russian official orders has resulted in other queer and needless fixtures in tho official system. Quito a ludicrous discovery of this sort was mado s by Empress Catherine, who was the mother of that Emperor Paul who was assassinated in 1801. Catherine, at one time, was inspired to scrutinise the Imperial housekeeper's accounts. To her amazement she found among other queer items that "ono bottle of rum daily" was charged to tho heir apparent. Inasmuch as hor son, Naslednik, then a young man, had never evinced any signs of intemperate habits, his mother was greatly astonished. Going over tho accounts to ascertain how long this sort of thing had been enduring, she found to her still greater astonishment that the said expenditure went back to the. day of his birth, and, indeed, far beyond it. So, it appeared, the heir to tho throne had not only been charced with drinking over thirty dozen bottles of fine Jamaica rum over since he was born, but for a long time before that. It is hardly necessary to add that the Empress

SIADB A THOROUGH INVESTIGATION' of this queer entry. Finally, by the aid of an antiquarian, she at last reached the original entry. A century or so before the Imperial !>hysician had prescribed for the Nasettnik of the period, "on account of. a violet toothache a teaspoonful of run:, to be token with sugar." This dose was given for several days in succession; and the nurse in charge had deemed it more fitting to the Imperial dignity, as vv'ell as more profitable to herself, to Surchase a new bottle of rum each day. 'o ono had ever given the order to discontinue tho purchase and it had gene on for a century, the rum having constituted ono of the perquisites of the court nurse.

England has always had an affection for th-3 old ways. So persistent is that nation in keeping to the forms and traditions of the past that its French neighbour over the way has dubbed tho United Kingdom a. " museum of nnti•quities " among modern nations. It is somewhat odd that the Norman French of Edward, tho Confessor should still, bo the language, the legal voice of parliament, but so it is, in a way. Whenever a Bill has passed tho Commons, the cleric, before ho forwards it to tho House of Lords, writes upon it, according to the ancient usao;e: " Soit bailie aux Seigneus " _ (Let it bo sent to tho lords). If it is sent from the Peers to tho Commons it bears the like indorsement: " Foit bailie aux Communes " (Let it bo sent the Commons). Should a Bill pass both houses it needs only tho Royal assent to become a law. Here the Norman-French appears again. The Commons, summoned by thk tjsukr. of the flack bod, aro admitted to hear the statement .of of his Majesty's commissioners. When all are assembbd the Lord Chaiie:?lk>r makes a to his assistant, who vowU