: rewarding the industrious, and supplying them with necessaries. But the gift is now almost demanded as a right and our journeymen, apprentices, &c. are grown so polite, that instead of reserving their Christmas box for its original use, their ready cash serves them only for present pocket-money; and instead of visiting their friends and relations, they commence the fine gentlemen of the week. The sixpenny hop is crowded with ladies and gentlemen from the kitchen; the syrens of Catherine-street charm many a holiday gallant into their snares; and the play-houses are filled with beaux, wits, and critics, from Cheapside and Whitechapel. The barrows are surrounded with raw lads setting their halfpence against oranges; and the greasy cards and dirty cribbage board employ the genteeler gamesters in every ale-house. A merry Christmas has ruined many a promising young fellow, who has been flush of money at the beginning of the week, but before the end of it has committed a robbery on the till for more. But in the midst of this general festivity there are some so far from giving into any extraordinary merriment, that they seem more gloomy than usual, and appear with faces as dismal as the month in which Christmas is celebrated. I have heard a plodding citizen most grievously complain of the great expense of house-keeping at this season; when his own and his wife's relations claim the privilege of kindred to eat him out of house and home: then again, considering the present total decay of trade, and the great load of taxes, it is a shame, they think, that poor shop-keepers should be so fleeced and plundered, under the pretence of Christmas boxes. But if tradesmen have any reason to murmur at Christmas, many of their customers, on the other hand, tremble at its approach; as it is made a sanction to every petty mechanic, to break in upon their joy, and disturb a gentleman's repose at this time by bringing in his bill. Others, who used to be very merry at this season, have within this year or two been quite disconcerted. To put them out of their old way, is to put them out of humour; they have therefore quarrelled with the alınanack, and refuse to keep their Christmas according to act of parliament. My cousin Village informs me, that this obstinacy is very common in the country; and that many still persist in waiting eleven days for their mirth, and defer their Christmas till the blowing of the Glastonbury thorn. In some, indeed, this cavilling with the calendar has been only the result of close economy; who, by evading the expense of keeping Christmas with the rest of the world, find means to neglect it, when the general time of celebrating it is over. Many have availed themselves of this expedient: and I am acquainted with a couple, who are engaged at the New Style on another account; because it puts them to double expenses, by robbing them of the opportunity of keeping Christmas day and their wedding day at the same time. As to persons of fashion, this annual carnival is worse to them than Lent, or the empty town in the middle of summer. The boisterous merriment, and awkward affectation of politeness among the vulgar, interrupts the course of their refined pleasures, and drives them out of town for the holidays. The few who remain are very much at a loss how to dispose of their time; for the theatres at this season are opened only for the reception of school-boys and apprentices, and there is no public place where a person of fashion can appear, without being surrounded with the dirty inhabitants of St. Giles's, and the brutes from the Wapping side of Westminster. These unhappy sufferers are really to be pitied; and since Christmas day has to persons of distinction a great deal of insipidity about it, I cannot enough applaud an ingenious lady, who sent cards round to all her acquaintance, inviting them to a rout on that day; which they declared was the happiest thought in the world, because Christmas day is so like Sunday. T No. 49. THURSDAY, JANUARY 2, 1754. Est in consilio matrona, admotaque lanis JUV. SAT. vi. 496. Here ev'ry belle, for taste and beauty known, "SIR, "TO MR. TOWN. "CONTESTED elections and double returns being at present the general topic of discourse, a subject in which the ladies, methinks, are but little concerned, I have a scheme to propose to you in their behalf, which I doubt not but you, as their professed patron, will use your eloquence to recommend, and your authority to enforce. It has long been a matter of real concern to every well-wisher to the fair sex, that the men should be allowed the free choice of representatives, to whom they can make every real or pretended grievance known, while the women are deprived of the same privilege; when in reality they have many grievances utterly unknown and unthought of by the men, and which cannot be redressed but by a female parliament. "I do not, indeed, pretend to the honour of first projecting this scheme, since an assembly of this nature has been proposed before: but as it appears to me so necessary I would advise that writs be immediately issued out for calling a parliament of women, which for the future should assemble every winter, and be dissolved every third year. My reason for shortening the time of their sitting proceeds from the reflection, that full as much business will be done, at least as many speeches will be made, by women in the three years, as by men in seven. To this assembly every county and city in England shall send two members; but from this privilege I would utterly exclude every borough, as we shall presently see that they can have no business to transact there. But as I would have their number at least equal to that of the other parliament, the deficiency should be supplied by the squares and great streets at the court end of the town, each of which should be represented by one of their own inhabitants. In humble imitation of the Houses of Lords and Commons, the ladies of peers, whether spiritual or temporal, should sit here in their own right, the others by election only; any woman to be qualified, whose husband, or even whose father, for I would by no means exclude the unmarried ladies, is qualified to be chosen into the other. In the same manner, whatever entitles the husband or father to vote at that election, should entitle his wife or daughter to vote at this. "Having settled this point, it now remains to adjust the subjects which they are to treat of; and these we shall find to be, indeed, of the last importance. What think you, Sir, of the rise and fall of fashions, of as much consequence to them as the rise and fall of kingdoms is to us? of the commencing a new acquaintance, equivalent to our making a new alliance? and adjusting the ceremonial of a rout or ball, as interesting as the preliminaries of a treaty or a congress? These subjects, and these alone, will sufficiently employ them every sessions; and as their judgement must be final, how delightful will it be to have bills brought in to determine, how many inches of the leg or neck may lawfully be exposed, how many courtesies at a public place amount to an acquaintance, and what are the precise privileges of birth or fortune, that entitle the possessors to give routs or drums, on week-days or on Sundays. Whoever should presume to transgress against these laws, might be punished suitably to their offences; and be banished from public places, or be condemned to do penance in linsey-wolsey: or if any female should be convicted of immodesty, she might be outlawed; and then, as these laws would not bind the nymphs of Drury, we should easily distinguish a modest woman, as the phrase is, if not by her looks, at least by her dress and appearance; and the victorious Fanny might then be suffered to strike bold strokes without rivalry or imitation. If any man, too, should be found so grossly offending |