All through the English provinces bonfires were burned, effigies were carried in procession, mummers and masqueraders thronged the streets and invaded the houses singing Pope Day rhymes, and volleys of guns were fired. In some New England towns the boys still have bonfires on November 5th. In the year 1765 the growing feeling with regard to the Stamp Act chancing to come to a climax in the late autumn, produced in New York a very riotous observance of Pope’s Day. The demonstrations really began on November 1st, which was termed “The Last Day of Liberty.” In the evening a mob gathered, “designing to execute some foolish ceremony of burying Liberty,” but it dispersed with noise and a few broken windows. The next night a formidable mob gathered, “carrying candles and torches in their hands, and now and then firing a pistol at the Effigy which was carried in a Chair.” Then the effigy was set in the Governor’s chariot, which was taken out of the Fort. They made a gallows and hung on it an effigy of the Governor and one of the Devil, and carried it to the Fort, over which insult soldiers and officers were wonderfully patient. Finally, gallows, chariot and effigies were all burnt in the Bowling Green. The mob then ransacked Major James’s house, eating, drinking, destroying, till £1500 of damage was done. The next day it was announced that the delivery and destruction of the stamps would be demanded. In the evening the mob started out again, with candles and a barber’s block dressed in rags. The rioters finally dispersed at the entreaties of many good citizens,--among them Robert R. Livingstone, who wrote the letter from which this account is taken. In 1774, November 5th was still a legal holiday. There still exists in New York a feeble and divided survival of the processions and bonfires of Guy Fawkes Day. The police-prohibited bonfires of barrels on election night, and the bedraggled parade of begging boys on Thanksgiving Day are our reminders to-day of this old English holiday. There was one old-time holiday beloved of New Yorkers whose name is now almost forgotten,--Pinkster Day. This name was derived from the Dutch word for Pentecost, and must have been used at a very early date; for in a Dutch book of sermons, written by Adrian Fischer, and printed in 1667, the title of one sermon reads: _Het Eersts Tractact; Van de Uystortnge des Yeyligen Geests over de Apostelen op ben Pinckster Dagh_,--a sermon upon the story of the Descent of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles on Pinkster Day.