People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 27-25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1896 — Origin of New Year’s Customs. [ARTICLE]

Origin of New Year’s Customs.

Now Year’s customs in the United States are evidently the result of social evolution of that law the scientists call “natural selection and survival of the fittest.” In other words, each set of the early immigrants brought or devised its own customs, and those best suited to the nature Of tho country and genius of the peoplo have become general, while all others have been quietly dropped. It is not easy to trace the origin of tho Knickerbocker oustom of gentlemen calling on their lady friends and taking refreshments, but it is evidently one of the “fittest,” for it is becoming national. Its progress westward and southward can be traoed as certainly as any other sooial or any political development, and it seems subject to a curious law of aotion and reaction. A western village or small olty takes up the fashioD, and its observance becomes more general every yeas for some time; then it falls into disuse for a year or two, only to revive again with more style and more general observance.