Governments do not retard it. Henry the
Seventh bargained with my father that, out of
the profits of every voyage, he, the king,
should receive a fifth, in merchandise or
money. The practice is not likely to grow
rusty."

"Well, well, my friend," said More, "we
will talk further of these things. But now
the sun is up, so a merry May-morning to
you. Come in."

Four days after the Shaft of St. Andrew
had been set up, there was a fearful tragedy
enacted in London. There came into the
City the Duke of Norfolk, with fourteen
hundred men in harness; and they stood
in the streets, and spake opprobrious words
to the citizens; and, according to the chronicler,
"Proclamations were made that no
women should come together to babble and
talk, but that all men should keep their
wives in their houses,"—so remorseless is
military discipline. And the duke kept the
"oyer and determiner." The buckler-play
on May Even cost the lives of fifteen unhappy
wretches, of whom the most were apprentices.
What was done with the rest, the old chronicler,
Hall, shall relate—

"Thursday, the twenty-second day of May,
the King came into Westminster Hall, for
whom, at the upper end, was set a cloth of
estate, and the place hanged with arras: with
him was the Cardinal, the Dukes of Norfolk
and Suffolk, the Earls of Shrewsbury, of
Essex and Wiltshire, of Surrey, with many
lords and others of the King's council. The
Mayor and Aldermen, and all the chief of
the City, were there, in their best livery
(according as the Cardinal had them
appointed), by nine of the clock. Then the
King commanded that all the prisoners should
be brought forth. Then came in the poor
younglings and old false knaves, bounden in
ropes, all along, one after another, in their
shirts, and every one a halter about his neck,
to the number of four hundred men and
eleven women. And when all were come
before the King's presence, the Cardinal sore
laid to the Mayor and Commonalty their
negligence, and to the prisoners he declared
that they had deserved death for their offence.
Then all the prisoners together cried, 'Mercy,
gracious lord—mercy!' Then the lords
altogether besought his Grace of mercy; at whose
request the King pardoned them all. And
then the Cardinal gave unto them a good
exhortation, to the great gladness of the
hearers; and when the general pardon was
pronounced, all the prisoners shouted at
once, and altogether cast up their halters
into the hall roof, so that the King might
perceive they were none of the discreetest
sort."

And so the first of May, in the year 1517,
was ever after called EVIL MAY-DAY.

The apprentices' tragedy long threw a
gloom over the May-games of London. No
King and Queen, with lords and ladies, rode
a-maying to Greenwich; no company of tall
yeomen, clothed all in green, bade welcome to
the woods; no Robin Hood and his followers
escorted the Court to arbours made of boughs,
decked with flowers, and furnished with the
more substantial attractions of wine and
venison; no citizens in every parish had their
several Mayings, and fetched in May-poles
with pastime all the day long. Honest old
Stow almost weeps over this falling off. The
punishment of Evil May-day lasted through
several generations. The great Shaft of
St. Andrew was ignobly laid along under the
pentices of Shaft Alley; and there it rotted
on iron hooks for two-and-thirty years. Even
that inglorious repose was at last denied to it.
The Reformation came; and one Sir Stephen,
curate of St. Katharine's, preaching from an
elm-tree in St. Paul's churchyard, denounced
the unhappy Shaft as an idol; and away went
his hearers that very Sunday, and "after they
had well dined, to make themselves strong,"
as Stow gravely records, raised the Shaft from
the hooks, sawed it in pieces, and divided the
logs amongst them.

MY PEARL-FISHING EXPEDITION.

CEYLON has for centuries been famed for
the richness and value of its pearls. Its
oyster banks are said to have furnished those
which the voluptuous Cleopatra quaffed in
her wine to the health of Marc Antony.
The "Barbaric Pearl" was ever a favourite
ornament amongst the Greek and Roman
ladies; and it is still as highly prized by
the native princes of India. The most costly
produce of the Ceylon Pearl Fisheries is
carried, by Moorish and Hindoo traders,
to the Indian Continent: the least valuable
are mostly exported to the countries of
Europe.

The reader need hardly be informed that
the pearl is a substance found secreted in the
flesh of a peculiar species of non-edible oyster,
which is met with on the north-west coast of
Ceylon, as well as in the Persian Gulf, in the
Sooloo Islands, on the coast of Algiers, in the
Bay of Panama, and in one or two other
places. These oysters are more prettily
shaped than the edible oysters of this country.
The interior of the shell has a most beautiful
mother-o'-pearl appearance. The finest pearls
are usually found in the beard of the oyster,
whilst the smaller varieties, and those known
as seed pearls, are met with in the thick part
of the flesh. Some have been seen as large
as pistol-bullets, and one is on record as
having been worth one hundred and ten
thousand pounds. The average value,
however, of the middling sizes are about three or
four pounds; whilst the smaller sizes are to
be had for a few shillings.

Since the possession of Ceylon by the
British, the Pearl Fishery has proved a source
of considerable revenue to the Government;