nd
get some resin. Now, then, for kiss in the ring!' Then while the
fiddler gets his resin, which means anything he likes to eat or drink,
the whole party, perhaps amounting to three or four van-loads in all,
form into a circle for 'kiss in the ring.' The ring is one uproarious
round of frolic and laughter, which would 'hold both its sides,' but
that it is forced to hold its neighbours' hands with both its own,
under which the flying damsel who has to be caught and kissed bobs in
and out, doubling like a hare, till she is out of breath, and is
overtaken at last, and led bashfully into the centre of the group, to
suffer the awful penalty of the law. While this popular pastime is
prolonged to the last moment, the van is getting ready to return; the
old folks assist in stowing away the empty baskets and vessels; and an
hour or so before sun-down, or it may be half an hour after, the whole
party are remounted, and on their way home again, where they arrive,
after a jovial ride, weary with enjoyment, and with matter to talk
about for a month to come.

At Epping Forest, the scene is very different, but not a whit the less
lively. There are no picture-galleries or pleasure-gardens, but there
is the Forest to roam in, full of noble trees, in endless sinuous
avenues, crowned with the 'scarce intruding sky,' among which the
joyous holiday-makers form a finer picture than was ever painted yet.
Then there are friendly foot-races and jumping-matches, and
leap-frogging, and black-berrying, and foot-balling, and
hockey-and-trapping, and many other games besides, in addition to the
dancing and the ring-kissing. Epping and Hainault Forests are
essentially the lungs of Whitechapel and Spitalfields. Their leafy
shades are invaded all the summer long by the van-borne hosts of
laborious poverty. Clubs, whose members invest but a penny a week,
start into existence as soon as the leaves begin to sprout in the
spring; with the first gush of summer, the living tide begins to flow
into the cool bosom of the forest; and until late in the autumn,
unless the weather is prematurely wintry, there is no pause for a day
or an hour of sunshine in the rush of health-seekers to the green
shades. The fiat has gone forth from the government for the
destruction of these forests, for the felling of the trees and the
enclosure of the land. Will the public permit the execution of the
barbarous decree? We trust not.

Notwithstanding all that has been said, an