Natis in usum lætitiæ rosis
Pugnare Eastbourni est.
HORACE (_slightly emended_).
It is not the English nature, but the English climate that makes us
take our pleasures sadly (if we do, which we don't). And it is not
the fault of the English nature, but of the organisers, if our public
pageants are usually, like our statues, more or less good-humoured
burlesques of what they are meant to represent. Now Eastbourne has
triumphantly shown that, in spite of chilling and heavy rain,
England can rival the sunny South in the beauty and variety of a big
procession of floral cars. And if Eastbourne can do this, why can it
not be done elsewhere? "Organise, organise, organise," and let the
hireling merrymaker be conspicuously absent. Your hireling will still
wear his armour as if he were bearing the _spolia opima_ of a burgled
marine-store dealer. And the lady hireling, as a sea-nymph or a
shepherdess, can never quite forget what she owes to her dignity as a
respectable married woman. In the interests of the family exchequer,
and in the way of business, she may consent to dally with allegory,
but her heart is not in the mermaid's grot, nor do the spacious times
of Great ELIZABETH inspire her, beyond the Victorian circus-smile,
the circus-smile which puts a girdle round about the face for
forty minutes, or more if the procession be so long a-field. At the
Eastbourne Battle of Flowers everyone lived up to his or her coach,
carriage, wheel-barrow or cart, in a way which speaks volumes for the
artistic sense of the South Saxons. The children, as children use,
took the cake--after Mr. EDGAR BRUCE. They were there in great numbers
and variety, from the little _Titania_ in her fairy goat-chaise, o'er
canopied with flowers and flying doves, to the very small skipper of
the very realistic ship, who stood on the rainy deck with drawn sword
and unswerving dignity for some two hours of constant and crowded
parading. "Bravo, BURNABY," is the resultant cry of gratified
spectators, and better weather next time. A better show it would be
ungrateful to suggest.
* * * * *
Umra Khan's Consigne.
When headstrong chieftains say "I shan't,"
Or do the things they're bidden not to,
Like UMRA KHAN (now UMRA can't),
They'll find "_non possumus_" their motto.
* * * * *
AGRICULTURAL PROSPECTS.--The Kent farmers are looking forward to a
hoppy future. "What's the odds" to _them_ "as long as they're hoppy?"
* * * * *
"A 'FELT' WANT."--A comfortable _and_ respectable-looking billycock
hat.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Note: