Father Christmas

FATHER CHRISTMAS

A Suggestion to the Boys For Christmas Celebration

Why couldn't our boys get up some holiday plays similar to the immemorial "Father Christmas" play, in which the lads of Merrie England have so much fun? The origin of this play is lost in antiquity, but it deals with knights and their adventures, certain of which challenge and fight the followers of Father Christmas, and are in turn routed, till Father Christmas and the Black Knight cope in mortal combat, the latter, of course, being worsted.

The boys are dressed in fantastic style, with tall paper caps on and paper fringe around their jackets, wearing masks to conceal their identity. They are called the "mummers, " and go from house to house of their friends, invariably recollecting a kind welcome and a little treat at the end of the performance. They also take up a penny collection, and everybody has a penny for the mummers who arrord so much amusement.

In our early history there is abundant scope for the youthful playwrights, and the object of their performances in holiday week might be some charity in which boys are the beneficiaries, such as a treat of "goodies" to a dozen newsboys or bootblacks, to get supplies for a sick boy or the like.

The lndian in our early history is as good as the knight element for a stirring play for mummers - Massasoit and his tribe, in war paint, feathers and blankets, on the one side, and on the other the prim Puritans, in broad brimmed hats and short breeches.

Or tbe Pocahontas and Powhatan drama, with Jobn Smith, the hero, and a band of cavaliers to make it lively. The boys of Boston Common and the red coated Britishers was an episode to inspire their fraternity of today, and it would be great fun for our laddies in Christmas week to dress up and illustrate the valor of their ancestors, as their English cousins annually commemorate some otherwise forgotten achievement of feudal days.

Philadelphia Record.