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THE CHINA MAIL SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 198
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FILES
"All those millions they're spending on education make those pipe racks come out pretty dear Christmas presents.”
THE MAN WHO
ABOLISHED
CHRISTMAS
ONE OF THE WORLD'S STRANGEST STORIES
"T
By Felix Barker
HE House is modify the "unholy thin," observed but then, in 1848.
hurt come
oul
TVILS
holiday," With Charles I's execution Pactament two years inter and the start of completely the Commonweath power cume Colonel Mat against Christmas. An ordin- completely into Cromwell's thewa. Sourly ance was published stating hands and on Christmas Eve.
this he looked round the half. categorically that the Feast of 1832,
proclamation the Nativity should be no longer nailed to in ompty benches
the doors of many West-
observed.
City churches: minster Hall while his
RESOLVED BY PARLIAMENT fellow Members of Parlia
That no Observation shati ke munt nodded gravely.
held of Five and Twentieth day of December commonly
called Christmas Day; solemnity used or exercised in any Churches upon that Day its respect thereof.
The ordinance was made law in June and promptly forgotten -until two days before Christ más Then suddenly the Town Ciler's beli was heard la
and withl
Much," continued the Colonel, "I belleve to be occasioned by the observation of this day." He steels tightened his lips and proposed official reminder. Immediato and harsher legisla-
1:00
Another Member rose in sup-
the
1 a sharp People Killed
"I could get no rest all AT Oxford and Ipswich there
night for the preparation of this foolish day's solemnity,
of а
com-
the clergy
TOT
text
off the Strand). The preacher that day was the Reverend Mr Blahop of Ely after the Restora- Gunning, who was to become
tion.
going more than a further months,
x
exiled Charles II rode triumph- In the following May the
untly into London. Long Lades broke into smiles; black habits gave way to coloured slik und
London Express Service
£
Have the Gay
Gordon's
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in
The congregation
took Communion
defiance of the soldiers who stood on the altar steps with lovellad muskets.
mistletoe. My Lords of Misrule Again made night horrible and led their tipsy crews through the bright Christmas streets. And, on a more serious note a scholar lika John Selden of the publish a tract entitled "Proving Inner Templo might
openly The Nativity of Our Saviour to be on 25 of December."
Christinus revels were revived The sermon was over. Evelyn
at Lincoln's Inn and all Eng recorded and Mr Gunning was
despite the lifting of the drab land was merry again Yot "giving us ve Holy Sacrament gay flounces. And back with [when] the Chapell was stir-
Puritan the monarchy comme Christmas.
poll it somed to some all
older rounded by souldlers and
people Pepys among surprised and kept prisoners by
That year they sang in the them that somehow Christ the communicants and assembly
mases
were not as gay as they had boen. It was as it the long But before the arrests
made were
and in
years of Cromwell's rule had deflance of the
put a blight on them. soldiers who stood on the altar steps with levelled muskets, the congrega- tion took Communion.
taverns:
thanks Now Charles retUTTH
to God for Whose absence made old Christmas mourn;
For then we scarcely did to know
Whether it Christmas were
of 110.
No, whiteboards assured the young they were not so fue and luxurious as in the old days. Now la Good Queen Elizabeth's time
nh those toere Christ-
(COPYRIGHT)
This was a direel warning lu who took every op- port
were riots and people were portunity of ignoring the ban on killed. At Bury St Edmunds Christmas, held secret services, 150 apprentices threatened to and when Christmas Day prained. Mr Robinson. "We are, sel fire to any shop that opened on a Sunday (so that they were fell i doubt, returning to Popery. and to kill the owners.
legally entitled 10 conduct them. Yet a third volce was raised
At Canterbury there was even pubile services) preached ser- In horror. "Ona may pass from
serious trouble.
a Christmus The ions with Westminster." 1 more the Tower to
the House
mayor announced that not only und theme, Inionm
"and stu
would there be no holiday but Now they were forced to be nor a shop open
creature that
tha market should be even more cautious, and John stir.
At once several dozen
ozen Evelyn the diarist recorded that As this was Christmas Day 1 pened.
For Evelyn the arrest seems hed in 1853 there were no churches might seem that empty streets armed and furlous men morched
to have been a gentlemanly only through the
lo streets
the or and closed shutters were
or public assemblies on Decem-
budness.
Up went the holly and the mases! He was merely con- ber 25, and
and so he, like thou But this was mayor's house, smashed all his be
Aned in the house of the ivy," the DADES chains and windows, and set fire to bundles sinds of others, held devotions Countess of Dorset with whom
faggota at his front door. He privately at home. Coin- of
he was to dine, and cross- examined during the afternoon. the Pro- called out the constabulary and December in fight that followed the
After countering what' ho churches dsccribed as many 25 as a hollday was to defy the sheriff was knocked on the head
frivilous many people severely
but penalties on observers, so I and ensnaring questions and wounded.
was constrain' to celebrate it much With a stern stroke of his pen
threatening," he Arrests were made, and the at home.” Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Pro-
ringleaders tector, had abolished Christmas, mayor ordered the
to be beaten, but the gaol was To set the country un to
andi rushed
the example he had
men were insisted that us
released, The rioters refused Parlantent should always sit on
fell to put down arms tantil ал that day, and this gave added
undertaking was given topleulity to Colonel Mutthews's d proposals of heavier pentilles on those who flew in the face of
to be expected. the year 1650, and
other years during monwealth
and
tectorate, to observe
law.
the law.
(15 Iri Le
'No Revelry?
CHRISTMAS had
gone with swearing and the pleasures of the playhouse as "likely to give liberty to carnal and sensual delights.” It had gone during the Civil War and with
it the mistletoe, the Yule log, the boor's head and the mince Ever since the Long
plesment had mado on order
in
1044
December 25 and
and
The following year, too, he wrote: "Dec. 25, Christmas Day. No public officers in
Arrest
MIREE years later,
to
released.
Wis
A number of clergy were arrested
December 26
100
that year, but this was almost however, the last blow against Christmas. in 1657 he took a chance.
The power of the Protectorato that With his wife he came up
was waning fast. In the Sep- tember of the next year, 1658, Richard could not keep the Cromwell died and his son tottering Parliamentary regime
their leaders' point of view London from his home at Sayes and that then no men should "Exeter Chapel" (presumably a should be heard at proper trial Court, Deptford, and went to
further trouble them."
private chapel in Exeter House,
JET AGE DOCTORS FIND
NEW PERIL TO PILOTS
By ARTHUR BRENARD
coated to be a day for dancing OYAL AIR FORCE light-loutenant who wig and feasting.
Under the new regime it was
Rodoctors
got a festival but a fast-day startling discovery which "during which men shall recall may solve the riddle of their own sins and those of dozens of crashes by single their fathers' who transformed
sacred day of Christ into an seat jet planes. Occasion of revelry."
**
in- problem was treated like B
murder mystery, death-in-the-air
Soon the Meteor was 37,000ft Suddenly the pieces of the
Jig-shw
foll
Aplace aviation doctors, as
-seven miles-up.
The flight-lieutenant told his into pupil that he was not feeling well and was diving to 20,00ft cautioi as their civilian-col- Down they went, but at 20,000rt leagues, rotuse to be drawn morning It may be the answer, too, to the instructor felt worse. Now on Christmas
The oficially, I can say that high- soldiers were sent round half years ago of 48-year-old controls
the disappearance three and a pupil took over on bis dual ranking RAF officers are satis don a little before dinner me David Atcherley,
fed that decompression sickness one of the salfing the air for smells of RAF's famous twin air vice the flight-lieutenant was lifted overcome in jet flying
Ho flew back to base, where is yet another problem to be roasting, searching kitchens,u
on a from the cockpit unconscious "the bonds"
The sickness is similar to and peering into ovens. They marsbals. He vanished
Medi- Twelve hours, Inter he died in
which divers got had orders to conscate all route fight over the
by being brought up too quickly from a great depth.
Divers are put into a cham
meat they found being cooked.terranean in a Meteori set the RAF hospital at Rostrup.
fighter. Sharp Reminder
His brother, the colourful ·In a post-mortem RAF bar where pressure is, gradually CHRISTMAS had gone and Batchy" Atcharley, flew on doors found puzzling internal reduced to normal, over 2.about yet it had not gone. As other Melear over the sorg followed, and the new fat age once there are normally: no ill- hemorrhages Laboratory tests four hours. If this is done at with swearing, you could legis route, hoping to discover what sickness was idenuded. late against it but not abolish happened to David,
He found Thi was it. As Richards Kentlah sadly nothing.
the first time effects
3- understand that new anders told Parliament, reporting nows Now the RAF doctor be doctor had been able to listing ways of avoiding the
demonstra-Have they have the answer to examine a victim who had not sickness are belig prepared, people of England mystery-DECOMPRESSIÓN
severely. Injured in
In the meantime the RAF LA
of Wristmas":
been
do hate to be reformed. EIGENABE the things that crash. For the first time there entisbeck that the mystery of
At first "Cromwelt had gone drop, dus divers call
slowly
WE a coʻpion to tell what led Devid Aichielis has
Unsure of his ground, benda a Doctor have long. Could it be, Livy asked, the #FOOTNOTE: Normal
to the plots collapse, pakaian solved bagiann
he had done little more than suspected this as aj hazard for
(guresring wherebst a duke,"Dat
high altitude form. -Now they
born
for Christmas
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