Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1888 — IT IS LIKE A CARNIV AL. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

IT IS LIKE A CARNIV AL.

Celebrating thanksgiving in the CITY OF CHURCHES. Thcr Rave Processions ami Maskers- and Much niov.tr> p; of Horns, Bonfires and - Asking of Gifts, bat “Thor"' Are Moetly ‘ Children—Tlio Cnstom’s Origin. i-/,.

VISITOR from, the west or south, w.k.o. should arrive 1 in Brooklyn on> k tho afternooui of Thanksgiving Day, would be startled, puzzled, aud, perhaps, if of a very devout nature, somewhat horrified at tho actions of tho young people. He would meet processions of lads and chib d re n blowing on tin horns,

beating cheap, drams aud whooping as , recklessly, as so many young savages. ' Boys in masks and outre costifmes would ; salute him with “Gimme a penny, mister.”' • And lie might even see a squad of apparently well to dolmen marching in irregu-lar-order and conducting themselves like „ tramps. To sum it up in one sentence: Brooklyn alone, of all places in the United ‘ States, .celebrates Thanksgiving Day as a ! henlhen-festival. And the custom is peculiarly local to Brooklyn. It lias not even crossed in lull strength to New , York city, though some of its influence is diseemiblo there; and it is barely noticeable in the smaller cities and towns of Long Island. And what is stranger still?* it is a very old,local custom, and its origin is, as the historians of Ireland say, “lost in the mists of a hoary antiquity,” The phrase “heathen festival” in the ■ preceding paragraph must not be esustrued as a term of reproach; it is simply ! meant to imply a celebration like that of I Christmas in "the west and south. And to explain there variations of local cus- | ‘torn, a bit of history is in order. As all i classical scholars kuow, it is only by ac- j eident that some sections of the Christian 1 world observe Christmas as the anniversary of Chris, V. birth. The day was eele- j brated in Italy lor a ‘thousand years or j more before the Christian era. It was the i day of the sun’s return from his most i souther.n point in the heavens, the day ; when the people closed accounts for the old year and started on a new one; so all rigid rules were relaxed, the most austere smiled on the general levity and it was a day of rovtt and revel, of mask and mummery, of feasting and giving gifts and general social equality. Through all the-ehunges of 2,500 years the old custom has survived; ami in more than half tho Christian world today Christmas is.,practically a “heathen festival,” celebrated just about as it was in Italy 500 15. C\, except that gunpowder has . been invented and the turkey diseovered sines then. From southern Europe the custom floated unchanged to the southern belt of tho United States, and from England to Virginia and the border states north and south-, so, while New Englanders assembled in their churches for’forenoon -service on that day, tiro people of Indinna, Illinois, Kentucky and adjoining states were "firing anvtfs,T popping firecrackers, drinking eggnog, shooting at a mark, having running and wrestling matches, pitching quoits, aud getting ready for a big dinner of fresh pork, chicken and sausage, with whisky before it and plenty,of “Jeemes river” tobacco after it. Further south the, slaves were allowed unlimited licenso ahd revel, and no work was done till after Newt Year’s. ft ft ft Well, all that Christmas is to the boy "of the southwest, all that July 4th Ist to all American boys, and a good deal that a sehool holiday is to most boys, that is Thanksgiving day to the boys of Brooklyn, in the afternoon. A gentleman spending* his first winter in tho city iu -lffliZ. said tnjmiliacciitly: “When I descended from the Grocno avenue station of the elevated .road at 2--p..xm Lvyfts. amazed, at beingsurrounded by a crowd of half-grown boys in masks and fanciful costmr.es who boldly deI manded tho gift of a penny each and cn

my refusal raised an infernal din with tin horns, bones and other intrnmeuts. At lengtli?! recognized tho voice of a son of one of my neighbors, a wealthy man, and he asked mo for a penny! I bought off the whole squad at a penny apiece, but had not gone a square before 1 was. surrounded by another squad, dressed in "woman's elothes, their laces daubed With paint, and they insisted ou escorting me homo. And so it wont err all the afternoon, first a squad of little hoodlums and then a procession of tall lads and young men; and some of them actually knocked at the back doors and demanded gifts of pie and cold turkev. All the !>oys of the ward seemed to have turned hoodlums for the afternoon. And the parents said it was a necessity to have-a day occasionally to let off the savagery which iu inherent in a bov and uiust work out somo way. At night there were blazing barrels and other ixmfires on the corners, and little savages* daubed with paint howling and dancing around them. To a western man who had only known the day as o a religious anniversary it was a queer experience.” * *, The origin of this curious local custom cannot bo traced. Oue old citizen thinks it tvea set up on Long Island by tho French Hugr.cuots, who bed a day of gen-

erftl merriment at the season afterwards taken for Thanksgiving, and that the two merged in one by mere accident. Another “ventures to guess” that it was a Dutch custom, well established before Brooklyn becanio au American city Still another is positive that the eustom had its rise among tho first Yankees who settled in Brooklyn, as a sort of jocular reaction from the austerityrof tbo old New England holy day j. According; t», bitfE Hip BQtcrloek of Church and st ate was so complete, in New England in U)» last century that a man had to bo awfully solemn and religiously quiet all of Thanksgiving Day; the lighter hearted and liberal fled to Long Island and finding there so much more- liberty than they had been accusr tomed to. grew quite hilarious over their new found freedom and made tho day a sort of white man’s Emancipation Day. What was At first wild hilarity in them hag become - masking and merriment in. their youthful descendants: There is a good deal in history to support this view It is well known that the first churches on Long Island were largely built up by religions refugees from Net* England; aud as tho Puritans had rejected Christmas and May Day because the Church of England sanctioned some Tieenseen those days, s 0 it is quite likely these exiled Yankees rejected tho severer features, of Thanksgiving Day because the Puritans had enforced them. Bo the cause what it may, the fact is patent that while tho forenoon is devoted to religion, tho afternoon is. a, season for masking, mirth and mummery’. And in Brooklyn alone, among American cities, do parents allow and even encourage wild, boyish sports on Thanksgiving Day.

J. B. PARKE.

RAISED AN IHFERNAL DIN.