Birmingham age-herald., 1895-01-12
Writes of Christmas in Merry
 England.
OF BRITISH PEOULIARITIES
A Field for Immigrant Agents. The Weather, Religion and
 Politics, and Luclen Walker.
To ihe Age-Herald:

J old south is peculiarly blessed mong mortals-or cursed, asyou choose. b.essed, because he aione has seen the Christ day celebration at its best. Cursed if to be tantalized with yearly recurring expecta- ton and yearly recurring disappointment be curse. Freedom from care-that is the one real joy, whether it be in the heart of him who has none or of him who has the power to throw it off. And who was so free from care as the slave of that elder and better day, whose song aud laughter I can just remember as they filter through the recollections of childhood?
 Yesterday the day after Christmas, was "boxing day.' Christmas day itself is sort of solemn festival given over to church and family reunions and heavy eating, all indoors. The real holiday comes after, when everybody is supposed to be out, and merry if not hilarious Crowds flock 10 the museums and shows, and the theaters put on things gorgeous and heavy with proverbial British wit.
 But there is something of indescrbable, inexpressible solemnity even on this fest- val of all the festal days, which takes it's name, not from any custom of old Eng fish boxing matches, but because all the upper classes bestow on all the lower a Christmas box, now become shilling or half crown.
 As stood by the lake in Regents park on Christmas day, helping wildly de- lighted American youth of two winters feed the ducks and ''gooses, ,' watching the long procession of undemonstrative maids and matrons and serious faced citizens of the other sex, was wondering why they call it "Merry England" /" It is easy enough to feel and rejoice in that beautiful real1ly, "the green fields of old Eugland," ;" for all around, in park and garden aud field, everywhere that nature is given living chance, the green grass grows, IS growing now and never dies.
 Doubtless that pleasing fiction about "Merry England' grew up in soil that was fertile enough of smiles and joy and ringing laugh some hundreds of years ago, when the people were mostly peasants and serving men of the great houses, free from cure and responsi bility, burdening their
 minds with no social problems ana leaving government and all it's weight to the titled few, and religion to the priests. l can fancy the slow deepening of. the lines Of thought and care in the face of that careless and merry people as they caught the idea of religion as thing of personal responsibil- ity, and from that progressed on Crom- wells battlehelds to an individual share of government, and have now come into the actual conduct of a government whose re- responsibilities outweigh all that the world has seen.
 ''Free from care' the slave was as he danced and sang and ate in the merry Christmas on the old plantation, but the lines of care are drawing in the corners of his wide mouth as he struggles vaguely into some sense of the responsibilities thrust upon him ere his time.
 Beyond all nations of the old or new | time is this British nation. From the re- motest corner of the little island comes no letter of further date than yesterday. Yet it founded and peopled the American states and gave them laws and manners and the love of liberty and the sense of justice. Greater than the Greek, who could not wear prosperity and cause free dom to endure, declining from his zenith as quickly as he reached it. Greater than the Roman, for with all his courage and ambition and genius for law and system, he is without the Romans cruelty and has built mghtier empire, throughout whose wide dominlons justice is tempered with mercy. Founder of nations, peopler of continents, arbiter of Europe and of Asia and the master of uncounted millions of su ubject races the Briton Is not a generous | man. He does not make allowan ces-ex- cept for himself.
 He can see no special harm in the slaughter of few hu ndred Africans, more or less, any fine morning and the appro- priation of their land and liberties to the | purposes of British trade.
 | He would be mortified at lynching in | Warwickshire and sees no more reason for 1 one in the south. It is really not worth while to worry about his notions. The south has her difficulties; the Briton Is
 ''sat" in his opinion. I am getting very 1 weary, though, of being asked "Do you | know Ida Wells?'
 | Still it seems to me, in spite of the some- | what general opinion here that we lynch | too much, that the British islands are quite | a more promising and lucrative field in which to hunt immigrants than the north | west. South Africa is now the favored | land for both emigrant and investor. The south of the United States is a terra incog- | nita. If some concern in Ala bama would | lay definite colonization scheme with
 maps, descriptions and prices before the public here it would be absorbed. The | agricultural depression Is something ter-
 rife and the farmer wants to get away. We hear mucl-pf the "beastly London
 climate, [" and It is quite fashionable here
 to abuse 1t. Take map and London is
 way up about on a parallel with New
 But it isn't. Skating is great rarity, and
 4 degrees above zero is quoted to me as the
 lowest thermometer. It went to degrees
 in Birmingham in 1893 and to at Mont-
 changeable climate in Alabama; but the
 changes here in day are equal to those of
 a week in the sunny south. The redeem | ing feature is that one does not tire in
 walking. The Englishman deserves no
 credit for being great walker, because 1t
 is pleasure, and he pays the penalty for l his we'll won reputation by the cumber. | some size of his feet.
 | Many things have seen to marvel at in
 this greatest city the world ever saw, and
 many things in the English custom, the
 English achievement and the English char l acter command my continuous admiration. | But nothing in museum or gallery, or-dock
 or court, or abbey or in the pulsing, throb-
 ping streets, has fastened so deep hook in
 my minds eye as the ability of these peo.
 pie to carry religion and sect into the war
 of politics without blacking one another's
 eyes. They used to cut the throats of their adyersaries over these questions,
 knock down and drag out, All the prisons
 and pile the slain for conscience sake. Now
 nearly every church paper, is filled with
 politics, political notices and appeals, and
 directions for whom to vote posted on the
 church fronts and distributed at the doors
 and more or less talked in the pulpit. This
 thing went on for two months over the
 election of the school boards, the fight raging around the single point whether
 clause or two in some directions given by
 the old board to the teachers did hot lean
 too much toward the established church.
 thought, the election being over, politics l uou1d ha drnnped in churCh preaa and