Year: 1870

When Milton addressed metrical welcome
to the sweet May morning, and wished the
bappy season might be "lOng," he little
dreamed of the mania which in after years
would annually seize upon large portion of
the Anglo-SaxOn race on the very day which
of all days in the year is cOnsecrated to tender
and poetica associations. He could not foreSee
that this Spring festival, when maids and
bachelors led to celebrate the season OF
beauty and love by decking themselves with
fresh blossoms and budding branches, and
uancing around the symbolical pole, was to be
the saturnaia of domestic discord when man
should tear up by the roots his vine and hg-
tree, and shatter his firoside idols. If prophetic
vision bad been his he would never have sung
gf this as a day which ,.,


Mirth, and youth and warm desire;


for this is time when man lapses into bis
original state Of barbarian, and the gentlest
and most cultivated head of household
becomes rufiian and a nomad. We forbear
70 speculate upon the domestic wretchedness
which to-day and Tomorrow and all next
week will lacerate the bosoms of wives and
husbands afOretime afiectiOnate. 1t is not for
lis TO tear aside the vail which cOnceals the
distressing appearance of Paterfamilias, with
grimy hands and torn coat, knees and elbows
covered with whitewash, and crushed hat,
scolding the partner of his joys and sorrows,
who ,ciH litter up the house with rubbish,
invalid kettles and impracticable pans, broken
chairs and bales of discarded clothing, and the
thousand nameless relics of housekeeping
which, accumulatng from year to year, are
never put to use and never can be got rid OF
except by the providential interpostlon
of fire. Neither is it for us
to exhibit the suffering wife, tousled and fret
full, worrying over the problem how to pack
a trunk with twice as much as it will hold,
and listening in despair to the crash of the
best china and the cracking of the rosewood
sofa The turning out of household mysteries
to the cold light of the street, the exhibition
of all ones goods to the scOrnful criticism OF
the people next door, quarrels with carmen,
squabbles with the tenant coming in at one
house, trouble with the tenant who won't
hurry out at the Other,-these are some OF the
lightest misericl of moving-d day, and they are
only foretaste of greater miseries to follow.
For a week you dress like beggar and sleep
on the floor. You can't wash yourself, for
nobody can remember where the towels are
packed. The keys of all the trunks are lost.
Bridget the cook, has gone away without
warning, and Mary, the chambermaid, retires
from service until moving time is over. The
family dinner is q loaf of bread and q pie
from the corner grocery. The knives and forks
are mislaid, and there is only one plate. When
the house is at last in order, and the landlord
has put the range to rights and mended the
windows, and fixed the locks, wife and chill
dren are exhausted and must be sent to the
country; and you find that you have lost the
whole pleasant Spring weather, passed six
weeks in dirt, discomfort, and bad temper, and
spent "A hundred dollars or so, and have gained
nothing after all, for your old house did as
well as the new.


The remarkable feature about this annual
upsetting is that it happens without any neces-
sity. Many families have to move for the sake
of cheaper rent but in two cases out of
three there is no such reason az this there is
no better reason for the change than that rest
less disposition which forbds the typical
American to live long in one place. There is
no people in the world, we suppose, so desti-
tute OF local attachment as ours-nOne which
honors 20 highly and practices so faithfully
the domestic virtues, and yet cares SC, little for
a permanent home The fact of having lived
several years in one house is not, to most
American families, reason why, one should
continue to live there, but REASON why one
should break up and go to live somewhere
else. When this nomadic Temper takes the
form of pioneering, and stnds out emigrants
to the new Territories, 1t is a benefit to the
country; but In It's malignant form, as the
May day mania, it is IA curse to the human
race To-day and MoD,day some thousands of
families in New-Yors and Brooklyn will bo