[Editor: This article, regarding Christmas, was published in the “Stray notes” section in The Week (Brisbane, Qld.), 17 December 1887.]
Christmas songs.
I have determined not to write any original songs. My songs do not scan well; the feet are unequal, and the rhyme limps a good deal. But here are some of the old songs over which former generations made such fools of themselves.
The mummers were a very conspicuous party in old Christmastide revels. They imitated various historic characters, grossly caricatured, of course. One fellow says:—
Here come I, Oliver Cromwell.
As you may suppose,
Many nations I have conquered
With my copper nose.
I made the French tremble,
And the Spanish for to quake;
I fought the jolly Dutchmen,
And made their hearts to ache.
There ought to have been a Charles I. amongst the mummers, because possibly there he would have got the better of Cromwell. Instead of Charles we have another individual, not so much talked of now. He says:—
Here come I, Beelzebub.
Under my arm I carry a club;
Under my chin I carry a pan;
Don’t I look a nice young man?
But the mummers, like the “waits,” the carol singers, and all others of that brood, were beggars, and advisedly came to the main point in this way:—
Ladies and gentlemen, — Our story is ended;
Our money-box is recommended;
Five or six shillings will do us no harm,
Silver, or copper, or gold, if you can.
This would do very well at an Australian tea-meeting, but it is one of the lost features of Christmastide revels so far as Australia is concerned. It must be set down to our more favoured lot that from Dirk Hartog Island on our westernmost shore to Point Danger on the east, from Torres to Bass’s Straits, Australians do not send out their young people, even in sport, to beg at Christmastide. We have no mummers, thank Providence.
Source:
The Week (Brisbane, Qld.), 17 December 1887, p. 15
Also published in:
The Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld.), 24 December 1887, p. 2
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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