Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/299

 ''Tommy on the Tub's Graved 291

was all about they could not tell me, but this I learned, that they only did it once a year, and that they had always done it, i.e., I suppose that it was handed down by the older boys to the younger ones, and so on. I thought perhaps it might be some old survival, and that you might be interested to hear of it, but of course it may have no significance. I shall be glad to know if there is anything in ti.

Writing further on May 25th Mr. Schultz adds : —

" I am glad my information interested you. I have been out this evening trying to glean further information, but with small result. I interviewed a group of boys in Red Lion Passage, and I found that they all knew about it, but could not throw much light on the subject. I gathered this much, that it is only done at the time the flowers come out. One boy said, " It's to welcome the spring" ; they call it a " show". The children do it and then ask for coppers for the show : this is what I found. They said I would see it in Lincoln's Inn Fields, probably, to-morrow night. They all called it " Tommy on the Tub", and their description tallied with the one I saw. It seems to be done not on any particular day, but just about this time of year, and no doubt they get tired of it after doing it once or twice. I asked what it meant, and one boy volunteered the information that no one knew what it meant, but that they all learnt it, and so it is passed on. They say it is done in different ways by different children, but they all call it by the same name."

In forwarding the letter, Mr. Frazer notes as interesting the fact that the custom is observed at the time when the flowers come out, as a way of welcoming the spring. He also states that the custom is quite new to him.

In the discussion which followed the reading of Mr. Frazer's communication, Mr. Emslie mentioned that he had recently become acquainted with the custom in a street leading out of Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Since the above was put in type, the following informa-

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