Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1876 — Yankee Doodle. [ARTICLE]

Yankee Doodle.

This Centennial year of American independence is surely a fitting time for Yankee Doodle again to “ c me to town,” for now he is entitled to stick as many “feathers in his hat” as he chooses—and eagle feathers, at that. Where was Yankee lxirn, where was he reared, and what is his histonr? Some say that the word is the result of the abortive efforts of the Indians of New England to pronounce the word “English;” others, that it is an indian corruption of “ l'Anglais,” (Englishman), which they heard the French settlers use; then we are told that in the early settlement of New England there was a fierce tribe of Indi ans known as Yankoos (the word signifying “ invincible”), whose name was applied to their conquerors; in Morier’s "Journey through Persia” he says that the Persians of that day spoke of America as Yenghee Duniafy; finally, in Gordon’s “ History of the American War,” published in 1789, we are told that about . the year 1713 Yankey was a cant word much used by an old farmer of Cambridge, namea Jonathan Hastings, to denote excellence, as "Yankey cider,” “a Yankey horse,” etc., and that the students adopted it in their vocabulary and gave it currency. The judicious reader, having paid his money, can take his choice of all these derivations; but I trust he will allow me to throw in my own conjecture about the matter, which is this: That in the wars of the Roundheads and Cavaliers the term Yankee (or Nankee) was applied in contempt and derision to the former by the latter, and that long after its derivation was forgotten the word survived among the masses of England, to be easily transferred to the Americans when the occasion arose. There is, indeed, according to Prof. Rimbault, London, a tradition in England to the effect that the original song was directed at Oliver Cromwell himself under the name of “ Nankee Doodle.” Tlie same authority, an English musician of eminence, declares that the earliest trace in print which he can find of Yankee Doodle is in Walshe’s Collection of Dances for the year 1750, where it is given in 6-8 time and/'called “ Fishdr’s Jig.” The earliest <Qrm in which the words of the nursery'soou of Yankee Doodle appear was which still survives: 1 Lydia Locket tost'her pocket: Kitty Fisher found ft— Nothing in it. nothing in it, But the binding round it.” Lucy was sometimes substituted for Lydia, and one version has the third line of the 3tanza thus: Not a hit of money in it. Now, Kitty Fisher, whose name appears in the song, and who doubtless gave the name to the " Fisher’s Jig” of 1750, was a noted woman of the time of Charles 11. This carries Yankee Doodle well back to, the wars of Roundhead and Cavalier. There is an early version of the words in England, which runs: “ Nankee Doodle came to town Upon a Kentish pony; lift stuck a feather in his hat, * v And called him Haccaroni. The other version has it “ little pony.” As to the remoter origin of the music, there is testimony that, with slight variations, it has been known from time immemorial in Spain, Italy, France, Hungary and Germany. It is very likely that, as in the case of “ Goosey, goosey, gander” and other nursery songs, “Yankee Doodle” was introduced into England from Germany. The Duyckincks, in their “ Cyclopaedia of American Literature,” say that they were told by an old Hollander that the tune was a familiar one in his native land in his youth, where it was sung at harvest-time, the burden running—- “ Yanker didel. doodle down, Didel, dudel, lanter, Yanke viver, vnover vown, ; Botermilk and Tauther.” The introduction of the song to America, at least as a martial, if not as a quasi national air, is ascribed to a Dr. Shackburg, a surgeon of the regular troops at Albany, who was so much struck by the outre appearance of the raw colonial levies gathered there in 1755, preparatory to the movement against the French posts of Niagara and Froutenac, that he quizzically prepared a song for them to the tune of Yankee Doodle* which they readily adopted as their own. There can be no reasonable doubt that our foremothers brought the tune with them from England to sing to their babies, and Young America long before that date was hilled to sleep by "Yankee Doodle.”— W. 0. E., in Lippincott's Magazine for July.

The Pall Mall Gazette says: The”* Blue Book” of the agricultural statistics of Ireland, just published, renders unquestionable evidence of-the increased wealth of the country in the production of live stock when compared with a period before and a period after the potato famine. That national disaster, in its immediate consequences, extended over 1845 to 1849. The population of Ireland four years previously, t. «., in 1841, was 8,200,000 souls; the value of her live stock was £19,400,000, computed on the prices of thatyfear. In 1851 the population was 6,514,(500; the value of the live stock, estimated on the prices of 1841, was £27,326,000; and in 1874 depopulation wa55,300, 000 and the live stock £37,674,000, computed (it phould be observed) on the prices as they were quoted thirty-three years before. The value per head of population was, therefore, £2 7s in 1841, £4 4s in 1851, and £7 2s in 1874. In 1841 the average value of live stock, per holding of one acre and upward, was £3B Is 4d; in 1851 it was £47 18s 2d, and rose to £7O 7s 3d in 1874. The number of holdings in the respective years was 700,000 (estimated for this year), 570,338. and 535,420. These holdings, of course, are not to be confounded with the few which are purely agricultural, *. which sustain no live stock whatever. —A German farm-hand named Wensler, while pitching bay on a stack at Fremont, 111., the other day, broke the pitchfork handle and felHrom the stack, running a splinter through his heart, and killing him instantly. A FrRM in Columbus, Ga., in thirty days sold 62,115 yards of calico.