JUBILEE BONFIRES.
[To THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR:"] SIR,—May I be allowed to offer a suggestion with reference to the bonfire celebration fixed for June 22nd P It seems to me that, as the 22nd is to be kept as a general holiday, and as• all the country-folk who are able to get up to London will, in all probability, be travelling and on their feet from early morning to late at night, a separate day for the bonfires. would be more convenient for every one. I would propose, therefore, that, if it be not too late to alter the date, the bonfire celebration should take place on the night of June 23rd, when those of our country cousins who visit London on the 22nd (not forgetting the soldiers and hundreds of officials who will be on duty on that day), as well as Londoners in general, will be able to enjoy the glorious spectacle of the blazing hill-tops.
Strange would it be if the lighting of the bonfires took place on Midsummer's Eve, and if it became an annual custom, during the remainder of her Majesty's reign, thus to celebrate her accession on the old bonfire night. For it is not so many years ago that the whole countryside on Mid- summer's Eve was lit up by the glare of countless fires. The old custom (the remains, as some assert, of the sun-worship of the Northern heathens) died out in England long before the Feu de Saint-Jean and the Johannisfeuer were forgotten in France and Germany, and even now, in some of the remote corners of Scandinavia, the Northman still light their Sankthansblus to mark the arrival of Midsummer and St. John the Baptist's
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