ENGLAND. 



557 



pany of )'outh3 dancing around it, and May has no longer its ancient festival. In London, a 

 company of chimney sweepers may be seen on the first of May, with their sable rags, stream- 

 ing with ribands, and their soiled faces shining with patches of gold leaf. They dance and 

 solicit charity. It is the only day in the year in which they are drawn from their horrid slavery 

 to seek for enjoyment. 



On the 5th of November, the anniversary of the famous gunpowder plot, troops of boys may 

 be seen bearing about what passes for an effigy of Guy Fawkes, cutting all sorts of antics, and 

 singing the old verses, 



" Don't you remember, the fifth of November, 

 Gunpowder treason and plot; I see no reason 

 Why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot, " &c. 



Beating the bounds is also a curious relic of olden times, still kept up in some parishes. 



Guy Fawkes. bcattn.<r tiie Louiid: 



18 Education. In late years, the greatest exertions have been made to spread knowledge 

 among the common people, though the laboring classes are less intelligent than the same grade 

 in Scotland or New England. Various series of cheap and admirable books for the instruction 

 of the common people have been much spread, and some of them are now republished in the 

 United States. There is also a great circulation of newspapers, and although few people in 

 England take them, compared with the numbers that do so in this country, yet a paper passes 

 through so many hands, that a great deal of intelligence is thus circulated. In the towns and 

 villages there are reading clubs and circulating libraries. 



About half of the children in England are educated at free schools, it is, however, those 

 who are engaged in the manufactories who reap the least advantage from schools ; yet, alter 

 the hours of labor are over, which make from half to two-thirds of the twenty-lour, half an hour 

 or an hour is devoted to instruction. The higher Et)glish schools have practically a republican 

 tendency. The boys are sent to them young, and at a distance from home. Their considei- 

 ation among their mates depends upon the manner in which they treat them, for there is little 

 deference paid to wealth or rank. Each one Is thrown on his own resources, and thu' ac- 

 quires a greater stability of purpose and civility of demeanor. The system of fagging is not 

 mdeed a republican one, but it is so far one of equality, that every fag has in time his own fag, 

 as every dog is said to have his day.* The boys at school sometimes resist the lawful author- 

 ties, and rise in the rebellion of a " barring out." Thej' rail up and barricade the doors and 

 windows, collect such provisions as in haste they may, and often sustain a siege of several 

 days so well, that they are admitted to honorable conditions of suirender. If, hou'ever, they 

 are taken by storm, they have little to expect, but a thorough execution of the laws of the 

 schools, which are no less severe than the articles of war. The English favor severe pun- 

 ishments in all things, and the practice of flogging is universal in the schools. Wealth and rank 

 claim no exemption, and a boy under the 6th form at Eton is liable to this degrading punishment. 



* At Eton, every boy under the (itli form may be flotrged not the personal strenoth to resist, all tlie orders of the two 



on the back, and the discipline is administered by the head upper classes ; force and custom regulate fagging. The 



master, who is commonly a gentleman of talents and ac- fag is held to brush clotlies, get lea and breakfast, fetch and 



quirements ; and all boys under the 5lh and 6th forms are carry, stop balls at cricket, and to be beaten if he should 



subjected to fagging, that is, they must obey, if they have refiisr-. 



