It is a custom in some parts of England for boys to go round the village on Easter eve begging for eggs or money, and a sort of dramatic song is sometimes used on the occasion. The following copy was taken down from recitation some years ago in the neighbourhood of York; but in another version we find Lords Nelson and Collingwood introduced, by a practice of adaptation to passing events, which is fortunately not extensively followed in such matters. A boy, representing a captain, enters and sings—
Then old Toss-pot enters, and the captain, pointing him out, says—
Toss-pot then pretends to take a long draught from a huge quart-pot, and, reeling about, tries to create laughter by tumbling over as many boys as he can. A miser next enters, who is generally a boy dressed up as an old woman in tattered rags, with his face blackened. He is thus introduced by the captain:
This is repeated twice, and the performance concludes by the whole company shouting to the top of their voice—
"Pase-day, Easter-day. Pase-eggs, Easter-eggs. Corrupt. from Pasch. They have a proverbial rhyme in those parts for the Sundaies in Lent:
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