Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1899 — Easter Customs. [ARTICLE]

Easter Customs.

There are certain districts of Tennessee where ecclesiastics and laics play fit ball in the churches for tansy cakes on Eastertide. In northern Pennsylvania the men claim the privilege to take off the women’s shoes on Easter Monday, and the next day the women retaliate. An Easter dinner in some counties of England consists of delicate dishes of peacock, swan and fowls, with ice cream in the form of nightingales’ nests and plenty of stout and ale and wine. The Persians, the Jews and the Russians all offer eggs at the festival of Easter, but it is difficult to ascertain the exact origin of the practice. In a certain church in Belgium the priests throw the eggs at the choristers, who throw them back again, the most extreme caution being used that the frail shells be not cracked or broken. All the world over may be found the superstition that at least one new article must be worn upon Easter day, which accounts in our country for the ravishing display of bonnets at church on Easter morn. German families on Easter eve place a nest full of sugar eggs and real eggs somewhere in the garden, so the children will have a hunt for them on Easter morning. Strange to say, these Easter eggs are believed by the German children to be laid by the hare, and a common sight in a confectioner’s window is to see this species of animal sitting on a nest of eggs. In southern France a custom peculiar to Easter week is the assembling in the streets of a crowd of young and gay gallants carrying a chair lined with rich white silk, decorated with garlands of

flowers and streamers of rijibon. The first maiden who chances to be near is entreated to seat herself in the chair, which is then seized by the lawless fellows, who start off at a full run. For the young woman’s liberation a kiss is demanded by each youth.