of labour unrelieved by pleasant pastime, and if innocent pleasures
are not indulged in, the tendency is to seek for gratification in
amusements that are not innocent or wholesome.

The causes of the decline and fall of many old customs are not far to
seek. Agricultural depression has killed many. The deserted farmsteads
no longer echo with the sounds of rural revelry; the cheerful
log-fires no longer glow in the farmer's kitchen; the harvest-home
song has died away; and "largess" no longer rewards the mummers and
the morris-dancers. Moreover, the labourer himself has changed; he has
lost his simplicity. His lot is far better than it was half a century
ago, and he no longer takes pleasure in the simple joys that delighted
his ancestors in days of yore. Railways and cheap excursions have made
him despise the old games and pastimes which once pleased his
unenlightened soul. The old labourer is dead, and his successor is a
very "up-to-date" person, who reads the newspapers and has his ideas
upon politics and social questions that would have startled his less
cultivated sire. The modern system of elementary education also has
much to do with the decay of old customs.

Still we have some left. We can only here record a few that survive.
Some years ago I wrote a volume on the subject, and searched
diligently to find existing customs in the remote corners of old
England.[61] My book proved useful to Sir Benjamin Stone, M.P., the
expert photographer of the House of Commons, who went about with his
camera to many of the places indicated, and by his art produced
permanent presentments of the scenes which I had tried to describe. He
was only just in time, as doubtless many of these customs will soon
pass away. It is, however, surprising to find how much has been left;
how tenaciously the English race clings to that which habit and usage