Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/434

 410 hoping for coppers. What eventually becomes of the effigies I know not, but on November 5th, 1910, I saw children eagerly collecting some clippings of trees and hedges from the little forecourts and gardens in Kensington. "What are you going to do with them?" I asked. "Why, burn 'em!" replied a little boy, hastily stooping to pick up another stick before his companions could get it. They were far too much engrossed for further conversation, but the sticks were not suitable for ordinary fire-lighting, unless in a much more poverty-stricken class than these children appeared to belong to, so I conclude that they were meant for bonfires, if any space for lighting them could be found.

There were, I think, more Guy Fawkes effigies than usual in London in the year 1903, a sign, too probably, of want of work among the casual labourers. One procession, which I saw from my window in Kensington about the middle of the day, deserves notice:

"The 'Guy,' an unusually large one, was mounted in a small cart drawn by a pony. It was preceded, first, by a man ringing a bell, and then by two dancers, wearing costumes resembling that of a clown and masks of the common painted kind sold in the shops at this season, who danced up the street in front of the effigy in the real old style, lifting the arms in the air alternately, in time to the motion of the feet. [They did not sing or shout.] For musicians they had a man playing on a shrill long tin whistle or pipe, and another following the cart beating a drum. A man in women's clothes walked beside the cart, occasionally cutting a clumsy caper, as well as his clinging skirts would allow. The rear of the procession was brought up by the clown, capering and curveting and shaking his money-box. It was a poor vulgar show, no doubt, but it retained in its debased state several of the principal features of the old morris-dance. There were the time-honoured figures of the Fool and the Bessy, accompanying the dancers; the drum and penny whistle represented the ancient tabor and pipe; while the bell which the Fool formerly wore hung