soon as we found out what it all meant, we bought matracas for ourselves, and joined the rest of the world in their noisy occupation. The breaking of his bones is but a preliminary measure. In the square a fair is being held, in the booths of which the great articles of trade now are Judas’s bones, of many patterns, at all prices, and Judas himself in pasteboard, who is to be carried about and insulted till Saturday morning, and then, hanging up by a string, is to burst asunder by means of a packet of powder and a slow match in his inside, and finally to perish in a bonfire.
The first sight of these pasteboard Judases convinced us of one thing, that we had unexpectedly come upon the old custom, of which our processions and burning of Guy Fawkes in England are merely an adaptation. After giving up the old custom as a Popish rite, what a bright idea to revive it in this new shape, and to give the boys something to carry about, bang, blow up, and make a final bonfire of, and all in the Protestant interest! There was another thing to be noticed about the Judases. The makers had evidently tried to vary them as much as they could; and, by that very means, had shown how impossible it was to them to strike out anything new. There were two types; one was the Neapolitan Polichinello, whom we have naturalised as Punch; and the other the God Pan, with his horns, and hoofs, and tail, whom the whole Christian world has recognised as the devil, for these many ages. Well, some took one type and some the other; and a few tried to combine the two, of course spoiling both. But, beyond this, their power of invention could not go. They were always