Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1882 — Mourning Colors. [ARTICLE]

Mourning Colors.

In Italy -women grieve in white garments and men in brown. In China white is worn by both sexes. In Turkey, Syria, Cappadocia, and Armenia celestial blue is the tint chosen. Tn Egypt, yellowish brown—the hue of the dead leaf—is deemed proper; and in Ethiopia, where men are black, gray is the emblem of mourning. All of these colors are symbols. White symbolizes purity, an attribute of our dead; the celestial blue, that place of rest where happy souls are at peace ; the yellow or dead leaf . tells that death is the end of all human hope, and that man falls as the autumn leaf, and gray whispers of the earth to which all return. The Syrians considered mourning for the dead an effeminate practice, and so when they grieved they put on women’s clothes as a symbol of Veakness, and as a shame to them for a lack of manliness. The Thracians made a feast when one of their loved ones died, and every method of joy and delight was employed. This meant that the dead had passed from a state of misery into one of felicity. Black was introduced as mourning by the Queen of Charles VIII. Before that the French Queens wore mourning and were known as white Queen.

Eni Pebkins cut open a Florida alligator and found pine knots in his stomach. That’s nothing. An alligator is not obliged to make a diet off of rocks and gravel-banks the year round.