May-Day

To what old custom does the following passage allude? "It is likewise on the first day of this month [May] that we see the ruddy milk-maid exerting herself in a most sprightly manner under a pyramid of silver tankards, and, like the virgin Tarpeia, oppressed by the costly ornaments which her benefactors lay upon her." —*Spectator*, No. 365. [Our correspondent will find much curious illustration of this now obsolete custom in Strutt's *Sports and Pastimes* p. 357. (ed. Hone), where the preceding passage from the *Spectator* is quoted; and we are told "these decorations of silver cups, tankards,…