PRIUROSE DAY.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 272, 13 June 1888, Page 3

PRIUROSE DAY.

Li>m>o\ \\,i-> painted a pule, bilious yellow on Apnl 19tb, 111 honour of Disraeli. It was the seventh annu ersai yof his death. Everybody wore the palo but pretty primrose. For days before they had been ruthlessly plucked throughout the length and breadth of England to w ither in the -mokeof London, and it the author ot "Vivian Gray" 5 leully loved the tlowei and could se3 the devastation, he would doubtless Kvy with other great men : ' Loid deliver me from my follower-. ' The bronze statue in Westminster was covered with yellow ehaplets from the Primiose League and Tory Duchee&C's, who made a pious pilgrimage here in broughams and \\ hose footmen deposited personal tributes in the way of more primroses at the foot of Ihe statue of the man who succeeded in retarding progiess for a shoit seti,-on. The (government papers enthused ovet the undoubted universal observance of the day, and drew from it the inference of the e\ergi owing popularity oi the coercion policy in Ireland. It is undoubted that nevei before has the day been so generally observed. E\ery thing animate that walks, cieep-5, or stand* still woie yellow. Al FTer Majesty's Theatre there was a large meeting of the Primrose League, and cimid great applause the secretary deposited a book on the table, which showed the membership swelled to nearly one million, but the meeting was like " Hamlet "' with Hamlet left out, Lady Randolph Churchill not being present to stir up the turgid tenth century gathering with a little nineteenth century lightness and grace. Ifit were not for the reported weakening of the Lords in their medieval attitude towards the Deceased Wife's .Sister Bill, one might well question whether tin- portion of the world moves at all. This law, which all enlightened people stihe to have lepealed, and winch even the Anglican clergy laugh at. originated in Henij VIII. having married his brother Arthur's widow, Katherine of Aragon, and, repenting of it, wished to back out ot a bad bargain with grace. Legislators ha\ c complacently consented to it for three centurie-.