Roman Catholic parents, are both direct survivals of the
ancient celebration of "Pope's Day."

In Governor Belcher's time, in Massachusetts, the stopping of
pedestrians on the street, by "loose and dissolute people," who were
wont to levy contributions for paying for their bonfires, became so
universally annoying that the governor made proclamation against them in
the newspapers. Tudor, in his "Life of Otis," gives an account of the
observance of the day and its disagreeable features. He says the
intruders paraded the streets with grotesque images, forcibly entered
houses, ringing bells, demanding money, and singing rhymes similar to
those sung all over England:

"Don't you remember
The Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and plot,
I see no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

From Rome to Rome
The Pope is come,
Amid ten thousand fears,
With fiery serpents to be seen
At eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
Don't you hear my little bell
Go chink, chink, chink,
Please give me a little money
To buy my Pope some drink."

The figure of the Pretender was added to that of the pope and devil in
1702; and on Pope's Day, in 1763, American politics took a share. I read
in a diary of that date, "Pope, Devil, and Stampman were hung together."
After the Revolution the effigy of Benedict Arnold was burnt alongside
that of Guy Fawkes.

Though we retained Pope's Day until Federal times, the Declaration of
Independence struck one holiday off our calendar. The king's birthday
was, until then, celebrated with a training, a salute of cannon, a
dinner, and an illumination.

Other holidays were evolved by circumstances. Anniversary Day was a
special festival for the ministers, who gathered together in the larger
towns for spiritual intercourse and the material refreshment of a good
dinner. It was originally held in Massachusetts at the May meeting of
the General Court. Forefathers' Day, the anniversary of the landing at
Plymouth, was celebrated by dinners, prayer, and praise.

Many other annual scenes of gayety were developed by the various food
harvests. Thus the time when the salmon and shad came up the rivers had
been a great merry-making and season of feasting for the Indian, and
became equally so for the white man. As years passed on it became also a
time of much drunkenness and revelry. Men rode a hundred miles for these
gay holidays,