“The good old customs of the country are passing away.” No speech, perhaps, is oftener heard than this when, over the walnuts and the wine, about Christmas time or Hallowe’en, the talk has turned upon the subject of old-fashioned festivities. And the sentiment seldom fails to evoke a sigh of regret, and to awake recollections of frolic mirth enjoyed in lighter-hearted days. But while there is, without doubt, truth in the remark, happily it is not altogether true. The portly old gentleman who animadverts upon the subject is generally too apt to take for granted that, because for some decades he has ceased to share in these festal sports, the sports themselves have ceased to be observed. If, however, the speaker were to return upon such a night as All Hallow’s Eve to the village where perchance his youthful years were passed, he might find that the quaint and merry customs he laments do not altogether belong to the golden dust of long-forgotten days. Though he himself has grown older and graver, the great heart of the world has remained ever young; and ever still, as the traditional occasions come round, there breaks forth amid its long-accustomed scenes the ancient madcap carnival of mirth. Not, indeed, quite as in bygone times is this festival of Hallowe’en now observed. The witches no longer, as in days of yore, are believed to hold their revels then upon the green-sward, and something of the ancient superstition which otherwise lent awe to the eve of All Saints’ Day has been dispelled by modern education. But enough remains of uncanny feeling to lend interest to the more mysterious proceedings of the night; and the spirit of simple enjoyment may be trusted to keep alive for its own sake most of the mirth-giving functions of the feast. An institution which took its origin probably from some strange rite of far-back pagan times, which has managed to survive countless changes of thought, and, like a rolling snowball, to incorporate in itself traces of the Crusades, of the mediæval church mysteries or miracle plays, and of later witchcraft and elfin superstitions, must have a strong hold somewhere upon human nature, and is not likely to disappear quite at once even before the blast of the steam-engine and the roll of the printing-press.