ENGLISH FESTIVITIES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 396, 23 August 1856, Page 4

ENGLISH FESTIVITIES.

Public rejoicings on.the conclusion of peace being pretty much a matter of course, it is decreed that we shall rejoice publicly. We approach this uncongenial undertaking, it must be owned, in a gloomy arid deliberate manner. It is not an Englishman's habit to rejoice in public: if he ever rejoices—which may perhaps be doubted —his first impulse is to go and do it confidentially at home. Nor does our solid business-like London lend itself easily to celebrations of this kind. Any one who has visited Paris on the eve of any great anniversary must have observed how naturally the aspect of that smiling capital, always full of gaiety, brightness and pleasure, bursts at once into an expression of sparkling festivity and joy. With scarcely any signs of preparation beforehand, the windingstreets glitter thickly with coloured lanthorns, the public buildings are gemmed and garlanded "with long lines of light, the " places" and gardens adorned with Parian statues, palm-leaved fountains, and a thousand other dainty preltU nesses; fireworks and transparencies, of which the French are passionately fond, appear by magic in conspicuous spots, and the swarming, city gives itself up, as if there were no such thing as work or care, to the full enjoyment of theholidiiy. Here we begin by a laborious process of disfigurement. Legions of carpenters and spadesmen are marched into the Parks, and huge and hideous booths, pens, and palings of rough planks covering our greenest turf, perplex the passers by. Doubts as to the propriety of the thing distress our minds; dissatisfied gentlemen in the House of Commons insist on knowing beforehand who ordered it and what it will cost, and are not appeased by being told by the Chancellor of Exchequer, that it is in strict accordance with ofik-ial precedent. Finsbury, according to Mr. Dmicoinbe, looks down on the whole affair with lofty contempt. " The people'of England,'1 say the penny papers (which pride themselves in •riving you plenty of grumbling (or your penny), " are superior to these low amusements." We do not feel able to take such high gjound. Fire-

works are pretty things, uud we have no doubt / that some thousands.'of .people who have not many innocent pleasures.will spend, some day this week, a very happy evening. As to the hoi. lowness of the tiling, what is it to many of the small ceremonies of life? People are not always glad at a wedding—perhaps not always sorry at a funeral—yet there is nothing insincere in being smart at the one and sombre at the other. A great deal of joy is not implied in reviews and rockets and and there is no doubt that the peace, concluded on terms which we pretty well know to be substantially fair gives, if not lively pleasure, general satisfaction lo the country.— Guardian,'April 23.