CHRISTMAS CRIMES.
(Dedicated to the unfortunate Concocters of Sensational Leading Articles.)
"A merry Christmas! And why not a Merry Christmas, we should like to be informed? Is it not far better to be joyous and mirthful than to be——" (&c. Supply vigorous epithets here). "A black-souled tyrant like Cæsar Borgia could, no doubt, spend his Yule-tide in——" (&c., &c. Invent some revolting anecdote about Cæsar B.) "Yet even those insufficiently clad progenitors of ours, the ancient Druids, seem to have understood as though by instinct the solemn nature of the season which to-day ushers in, and in what Mr. Freeman——" (or was it Lord Tennyson? Never mind—chance it!)—"calls the 'dateless dawn of history,' they first employed the mistletoe bough for ritual, and perhaps even for osculatory, purposes, and habitually gave themselves an extra coat of paint on the 25th of each recurrent December. And who can blame them?" (Recollect that interrogatories, addressed to nobody in particular, add force to a style.) "What though our modern Yule-tide ceremonies are a mere survival of——" (Here bring in anything you know about the Roman Saturnalia, say something pretty about holly being Scandinavian, and that "Waits" were quite common in Athens in Sophocles' time, especially on the stage. Then go on triumphantly and truculently, as if you had proved your point down to the ground)—"What difference does it make? It is the great holiday of the Winter——" (This will be a novel idea to most of your readers.) "For the children, who gather round the cheerful fire, and listen to the ghost-story invented by some eloquently mendacious uncle, the season positively sparkles and scintillates with happiness."
"How exquisitely pleasant it is to hear the childish voices," &c., &c. (to any amount).
"Even for the elders, too, there is a mirth and joy about the Sacred Season, as they calmly retire to their beds just when the row down-stairs is becoming unbearable, and locking their doors, look carefully round the room to see that the jug is filled in readiness for the midnight serenaders of this blissful time.
"When Dickens drew his immortal picture of——" (&c., &c. Here gush at length about Gabriel Grubb, Tiny Tim, and anybody suitable, from The Christmas Chimes or Carols), "or when Washington Irving depicted the more than feudal merry-makings at"——(&c., &c. Try to cook up as much about Bracebridge Hall as you think the public will stand. Perhaps a few practical words at the end would be advisable, as follows):—
"And after our traditional Yule-tide offerings are over; after the preposterous claims of the postman and the lamp-lighter have been liquidated by liquor or satisfied by sixpences; then can we forget that besides this private bounty we also have a duty to our country? Lives there the man with soul so dead, Whose heart within him has not bled, And who, quite promptly has not fled, at mention of that grandest of Nineteenth Century inspirations, the Jubilee Imperial Institute? The Imperial Institute is——" (Here mention what it is. If you don't quite know, you can count upon none of your readers being any the wiser. Then add appeals for cash, a few more Yule-tide common-places, and a general and genial wind-up.)
When a judgment is re-versed, ought not the original to have been in rhyme?
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