The Chronicle. PUBLISHED DAILY. SATURDAY, MARCH 19. 1910. THE JOYS OF CHILDHOOD.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 19 March 1910, Page 2

The Chronicle. PUBLISHED DAILY. SATURDAY, MARCH 19. 1910. THE JOYS OF CHILDHOOD.

One by one the joys of childhood slip away, and most of the practices which all middle-aged people enjoyed and flourished upon in their childhood seem to be coming under the ban of progress. The number of these practices that have been condemned or interdicted in very recent years must make a lengthy catalogue; but the, end is not yet. To-day tho "Chronicle" has received a letter from a correspondent who ruthlessly shatters one of childhood's greatest joys: the lollie scramble! Is there one person, between the ages of nine and ninety-nine, who has not on various occasions taken joy in tho pursuit of the "white peppermint" or the "plain boiled red," or the "green glistener," across the verdant pastures of the picnic paddock; or one person in whoso- ears the rattle of the lollie tin, preliminary to a "scramble," has not passed for most excellent music. Wβ are fallen upon sad times, and romance lies bleeding from the wounds of iconoclasts. And this last blow seems the hardest. With the hygienic reasoning of Mr Marco Fosella we have no quarrel; doubtless we are a healthier people than our forefathers were, and doubtless, also, our increased healthiness is attributable to our more careful methods of eating and living. But consider the price! We feel impelled to say that for many years to come the children will still hear tho summons to scramble Avhenever picnic parties do congregate, and that in the places of the children's predilections and their parents' and guardians' hearts there still will be found a fortress wherein Romanceand the Old Associations will bid long defiance to the beleaguring forces of Hygiene and. Iconoclastic Progress,