Old customs die hard. We have come across many instances of the truth of this saying in the course of our study of the Christmas festivals. Just as Christianity had to retain and remodel many old heathen customs, so Protestantism (often without meaning it) retained and remodeled many an old Catholic custom. Just as Silenus, and Saturn, survived in a measure as Santa Claus, so the Boy-bishop, in a measure, survived as the hero of a ceremony which flourished at the school of Eton until nearly the middle of the nineteenth century. This was known as Eton Montem. It was celebrated not in December but in June, though tradition tells us that the original date was St. Nicholas Day and that the ceremony was instituted in the year 1440, the very year when Eton was founded. Later it took place every third year on the Tuesday after Whitsunday or Pentecost, which usually falls in June. On that day a procession of all the scholars went from the school buildings to a hill known as Salt Hill that rises just outside of the grounds. At their head marched the captain and his chaplain, the one being the head boy of the highest class in school, the other the head boy of the second class. The chaplain was dressed in a suit of priestly black with a bushy wig upon his head. Two boys called “salt bearers” with “scouts” dressed like old-time footmen ran beside the procession begging from all passersby and they scattered through the roads to beg at the doors of houses for miles around. The money thus collected was put into a great bag, already sprinkled with a small quantity of salt and at the end of the day this bag was handed over to the captain. It was used to pay his expenses when he left Eton for some one of the great universities. Not infrequently it mounted up to hundreds of dollars and sometimes even to a thousand or more. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century it was customary for the chaplain to read prayers on Salt Hill. He was assisted by a clerk whom he kicked down hill at their conclusion. The irreverence of this part of the ceremony shocked Queen Caroline and at her request it was ever afterwards omitted. In 1847 the entire ceremony was abolished by act of Parliament, the last celebration having taken place on June 28th, 1844. And thus the last vestige of Saint Nicholas passed out of the ceremonial life of England. CHAPTER XIV FATHER CHRISTMAS AND HIS FAMILY The English, as I have said, have no Saint Nicholas, no Santa Klaus, no Chris-kinkle to act as a distributor of gifts on Christmas eve. They hail as the patron of the season a vague allegorical being, usually called Father Christmas, though he has, sometimes, been known also as Old Christmas, Captain Christmas, and by other titles.