Denton and Haughton Examiner, etc. — 1882-01-07 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

THE MISERIES OF A WET HOLIDAY.—The dommtically-disposed workman has laid his plans in a family council of many sessions for weeks gone by, and stored his pocket with convenient silver coin. His little woman has washed and mended and trimmed till her heart quickens and her eye brightens as she thinks of the admirable spectacle her five youngsters will form amongst the holiday crowd. The children are awake from five o'clock, whispering together in bed of their schemes for donkeys, and sherbet, and merry-garounds, and swings. They are counting over accumulated peace and half-pence, the premature wisdom of some careful young woman of ten meanwhile preaching care md economy. Alas, the dash of a bitter rain-laden gust against the window strikes an awful pause. What WaS that? Away go naked feet, under fluttering night dremes, iuttering towards the window. And oh ! the dismay that bursts through the upraised bliud. " Rain !" "It will soon be over." "tin it won't; we can't go, that's all." At this impru'ent affectation eta resigned temper on the part at a cynic aged eight, an epicurean of four raises a tearful howl of protmt. "They can go in a minus" he pathetically organs; "the rain can't wet them in a omlibus." But the cynic, like all his tribe, findings consolation for his own chagrin in rasping the sores places of others, maintains stoutly that It is out of the question, and that the whole project is at an end. So high does the argument rise that the deputymother, aged ten, finds all bee arts ineffectual to quell the dispute. The parents are roused sooner than they Intended. The father mutters something like a curse on his native climate as, after a glmce at the window, he endeavours to renew his nlumbers; and the mother quits her counts to soothe the clamour of the children by insincere promises of a speedy clearing up. Ff 0111 thatMOMCP Legion a long by of hope deferred, wearinem, bickering, and finally of illicit compemations worse than all the petty miseries they are designed to heal. Breakfast is neglected through watching of the cloud.. In the following hour the father, pestered by being asked for the fiftieth time over newspaper and pipe whether it will soon be fine, threatens to box the next questioner's ears. Dr. Watt's poetic aphorism an to the special interest shown by Satan in idle hands receives ample illustration. The diplomatic m sther, in despair of any change, opens one of her carefully-stored baskets, and with souse of the contente sets the youngsters to play at shop. But the game has less attractions than usual, and does not prevent furtive excursions into the wet, from which the wanderers are angrily recalled only to aweverate that "it is just leaving off." Incantations to the raiu " toga away, and come egaist another day;' are for a time popular, Inn the infant hicrophants have not the preseverance of B.rs priests in Elijah's time, though they also out themselves with knives—intended for shop purposes—and roar when they see the blood. Dinner in cold and comfortless, having been intended for consumption under sunny skies and leafy trees; and after this ineffectual diversion the household falls helplesely into chaos. The steaming waterspout or woollen channel offers reaistless inducements to hydraulic or embanking experiments, and one drenched child after another is deposited in bed, not without slaps on the way thither. The worn-out woman quarrels wills her husband, rendered peevish by confinement, and he betakes h!mself to the Jolly Dragon hard by, leaving mother and daughter to nag at each other. Late at night he returns, with Eghtenel ptsrmand muddled brain, to awake next morning indispose!, or perhaps incapacitated, for work. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN LIINCRY AND SlllClDE.—lionie and Athens saw suicide come into fashion ashen effeminacy, ambition, and the desire of riches prevailwl amongst thorn; and modem Europe, having trod in the same steps as the pagan world, secs that fatal disease, self-destrnetion, reappear, and to a greater and more serious extent, and its habits resembling in en many respects those of the Greeks of Alcibiades and the Romans of Augustus.