_Amandus. That_ even the pundits of the "Shrimpton-on-Sea" Exploration Society cannot so much as conjecture. Their excavators lately came upon a most mysterious "marine deposit" in a sand-choked chalk-cave in the course of repairing the great South-Coast Marine Embankment. Here are pictures of some of the items. Many of them are mysteries whose nature and use cannot be fathomed. Here is an apparatus supposed to have been a barbarous musical instrument, a hoop with a piece of parchment stretched across it, and ornamented with movable brazen discs. It _may_ have been used to scare gulls. At any rate, it must have made a hideous din when beaten or agitated. It was discovered near certain strange semi-polished fragments of what were apparently the rib-bones of some extinct animals. Their use now cannot even be surmised; neither can that of a curious wooden implement somewhat resembling a miniature model of the obsolete agricultural implement once known, it appears, as a "shovel" or "spade." _Amanda._ How _very_ odd! Still, hardly _dreadful_, dear, so far, eh? _Amandus_ (_gravely_). Perhaps not! Though the significance even of these comparatively harmless absurdities is painful. But my dear, Dr. DIGEMUP'S researches lead him to the belief that in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century a hideous "Annual Custom" prevailed. In the autumn of the year, it would seem, a sort of Social Edict of Banishment drove all decent and well-to-do citizens from their own happy homes, to make themselves miserable--by way of penance probably--in strange places, fusty, ill-furnished, often unhealthy, and always expensive, far from all the comforts and decencies, the conveniences and charms of their own well-ordered residences. _Amanda._ But _why_ did they do this dismal thing? _Amandus._ It is not conceivable that they _would_ do it save for compulsion. It is conjectured that some secret religious tribunal or vengeful Social _Vehmgericht_ drove the devoted victims to this dreadful doom. They had to pass weeks, and sometimes months, either in continual travel--as tiring and painful as the penitential pilgrimages of a yet earlier date--or in compulsory incarceration in dismal dungeons or comfortless caravanserais. _Amanda_ (_shivering_). Oh dear, how _very_ dreadful! _Amandus._ Dreadful, indeed! The leaders, controllers, or "gangers" of these Autumnal Pilgrimages of Pain, were certain mysterious functionaries called, it appears, by the generic name of "Paterfamilias." The Paterfamilias, who appears to correspond somewhat to the ancient idea of a Pilgarlic or Scapegoat, had, though "sore against his will," like the mythical _John Gilpin_, to lead his family followers in this peripatetic purgatory, suffer its worst horrors himself, and--_pay all the expenses_!!! _Amanda._ SHOCKING!!! And what did they call this horrid custom? _Amandus._ As far as can be ascertained, it seems to have been known as the "Annual Holiday," or "Autumn Outing"!