Jan. 2, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
“I’m half glad they ’re gone,” he said. “It 
seems almost like ingratitude to shoot creatures 
that have afforded a body such interesting en¬ 
tertainment.” 
[to be continued.] 
SOME NOTABLE FEAST DAYS. 
We think of November as the month of 
Thanksgiving, though this is a feast peculiar to 
our own country, at least in its present form, 
says the Kansas City Star. We sometimes 
grumble that it comes so near Christmas, and 
say, we niggards of frolic, that “it seems as if 
every other day was a holiday.” But Novem¬ 
ber really boasts no less than six other holi¬ 
days, some of which are observed throughout 
Europe, some in England, or some other coun¬ 
try, only. 
First of them all comes Guy Fawkes’s day, 
the fifth of the month, with its old song: 
Oh, don’t you remember 
The Fifth of November, 
Tlie Gunpow'der treason and plot? 
On this day it was customary in London until 
comparatively recent times for the boys to 
dress up an image of the infamous conspirator, 
holding in one hand a dark lantern and in the 
other a bundle of matches, and to go about the 
streets, begging money. In the evenings they 
had a great bonfire, and the image was burnt 
with much merriment, while the boys drank to 
the death of all conspirators and paid for their 
liquor from the proceeds of their day’s begging. 
Fireworks and bonfires were everywhere and 
an American might have thought himself in the 
midst of a Fourth of July that had gone astray. 
The eleventh of the month is the time when, 
as the old ballad says, 
Martinmass blaws chill and cauld. 
At this date, in the olden times, the country 
folk began to lay in their winter meats and 
man}'- are the references to the custom, in the 
old stories. Martimas beef was famous. It was 
dried in the chimney, like bacon, and served 
for cutting throughout the winter and well into 
the spring. Those were the days of wholesale 
hospitality and of wholesale provisioning; 
“about twenty-four beeves were killed in a 
week and a man who had bought a shilling’s 
worth of beef or an ounce of tea would have 
concealed it from his neighbors like a murder.” 
On the continent the Feast of Saint Martin 
is a day of debauch. The new wines are ready 
to taste, and the saint's day is celebrated with 
carousing. The usual dinner is a roasted goose, 
in memory of the story that Saint Martin, be¬ 
ing elected to a bishopric, hid himself in order 
to evade the honor, but was discovered by a 
goose, which led the way to his retreat. The 
gay doings at the feast are referred to the 
ancient Athenian festival of Bacchus, held upon 
the Tith, I2th and 1,3th of the month An- 
chesterion. which corresponded to our No- 
ve'Tiber. 
The 17th of November, the date of the ac¬ 
cession of Elizabeth, was observed in England, 
even within the last century. This was a 
Protestant holiday, and the bonfires lighted on 
all the hills were used to burn effigies of the 
Pope and of . Satan. Later, after the deposition 
of the Stuarts, the figure of the Pretender was 
added bv the Loyalists, and the trio were 
annnallj' burnt with songs and rejoicing. 
Saint Clement’s Day, the 23d of November, 
came next. This saint was the patron of black¬ 
smiths. Accordingly, on the evening of his day. 
the blacksmith apprentices would meet, and, 
dressing one of their number in a great-coat, a 
long wig of oakum, and a long white beard, 
they would place him in a large wooden chair 
covered with bunting, and decorated with four 
transparencies representing the “Black-Smith’s 
Arms.” Before the saint was a wooden anvil 
and in his hands a hammer and a pair of tongs. 
The other boys carried banners, torches, battle- 
axes, and spears: and. with “Old Clem.” as they 
irreverently called their patron saint, carried 
on the shoulders of six men. and preceded by 
a drum and fife, they perambulated the town, 
stopping at every public house, and not forget¬ 
ting to call upon the master blacksmiths. A 
37 
» <♦> 
THE NARRATIVE OF A SPORTSMAN I 
Inter>Ocean Hunting Tales 
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