Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1888 — The Jollification at Mount Ayr. [ARTICLE]

The Jollification at Mount Ayr.

About 120 citizens of Rensselaer went over to Mt. Ayr, Monday night, to help the Jjve Republicans of that town and surrounding country celebrate the great victory; About 100 of the above number went by rail,Yeaitng Rensselaer at 4p. m. going from Fair Oaks and return by a special train; and returning to Rensselaer on the 11 p. m. train. . The other 20 went across the country by teams. The party on the train received large accessions at Fair Oaks, while the calvacade across Country swelled to a procession a quarter of a mile long before it had crossed Newton township. The Cornet band, the Drum Corps and Martial band and full two score of big tin horns acccompanied the expedition, whereat it may be truly inferred that there was music and tooting, galore.

At Mount Ayr the chief feature of the occasion, after the tremenduous jubilation of the horns and the drums, v»as an immense bonfire, to make which six or eight loads of long, dry poles had been stood on end,..to form a huge cone, 25 or 30 feet high, and surmounted, by a bale of nay, and all saturated by a whole barrel of coal oil. It was truly a magnificent fire. A speakers, stand was erected near the fire, upon which there wae much singing and some short speeches. An unique but not at all commedible feature of .the occasion, was a mania, which seized the spectators <. for snatching „and throwing in the fire, the hats of their neighbprs. It began on tattered straYvs and, dilapidated, felts, but soon spread until scores /of gcod hats were thrown in and- consumed. Even such prominent citizens as Hon.S. P. Thompson, Rev. B. F. Ferguson and Prosecutor Marshall, were fain compelled to come home with handkerchiefs lor head covering. It was a foolish and a wasteful prank, of which everyone engaged jn. it may well feel heartily ashamed. _