124 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK 



OH. 



in the form of a silver type of Darwin's ape to Sir John 

 Lubbock, the great author of the holiday. Sir John 

 has shown himself to be an inventor of the highest order, 

 and his great reputation as a man of science has been 

 enhanced by the invention of Bank Holidays. The 

 people did him honour on Monday, for on all sides we 

 heard blessings invoked upon him and his. The reflec- 

 tion ought to be a proud one in the mind of Sir John 

 Lubbock, for he has added — substantially added — to 

 the sum of human happiness, and has carried rays of 

 hope and joy into humble households so great as to rank 

 him high as a public benefactor. 



It is a little difficult for us, accustomed as 

 we now are to the crush and congestion of Bank 

 Holiday traffic, to realise the surprise that it 

 created when it was all novel. 



BelVs Life said : 



A Statute Holiday ! A holiday by Act of Parliament ! 

 Well, if loyalty is to be measured by a nation's sub- 

 mission to legislative behests, this country, and more 

 particularly the Londoners, are steeped to the chin in 

 obedience. Sir John Lubbock, a name memorable in 

 natural history, and one to whom we owe an admirable 

 treatise upon the Fauna, fish and fowl of Norfolk, 1 has 

 never issued a more sterling note across his counter than 

 in this piece of paper which commands, in the name of 

 Her Majesty, as the great cashier of her people's happi- 

 ness, that they, the Queen's lieges, shall each and sever- 

 ally accept draughts of health and coin of pleasure 

 unlimited in exchange for toil and vitiated air. Thus 

 has a real and unqualified summer holiday blossomed 

 into existence, and it may be said the only one we have, 

 for the other escape days are in spring and winter. This 

 holiday is, indeed, an outer (an out-and-outer), as 

 Christmas Day may be considered a family fire-side 

 festival, and Easter and Whit-Monday are too often 

 shrouded in mists or visited with cold easterly winds to 

 deserve altogether the holy name of holy-day. If, 

 therefore, the merits of this act, as all other acts are 



1 A mistake. The treatise in question was by the Reverend H. 

 Lubbock, a distant relation. — H. G. H. 



