Jack-in-the-Green
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This May Day illustration and verse appears in London Town, a children’s book published in 1883. The illustrations are by Thomas Crane and Ellen Houghton, and the verse was written by Felix Leigh. May Day and Sweeps Day both occur on May 1st. The day was an annual holiday for chimney sweeps, or climbing boys as they were known, until their employment was effectively ended by the Chimney Sweepers Act in 1875. The Jack-in-the-Green was a figure covered in flowers and leaves who embodied the arrival of spring and its’ associated fertility.