Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1904 — ST. VALENTINE’S DAY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ST. VALENTINE’S DAY.

Old Customs Which Varked the Cels •’ bration of Feb. 14.

N accordance lag with general beInU lief, the saint for whom thedaywas named was a Roman priest, who UHI suffered martyr--121 dom under Em- . per o r Claudius X a. about 270 A. D. He did not come to a romantic end, • I but was beaten with clubs and yj then beheaded.

He I» not believed to have had any more fondness for lovers than did the other priests. Neither did he joy in sentimental poetry and deformed Cupids,-and it is not known, nor is it considered likely, that he indited any epistle to a fair lady before his execution; but for all that he was -to have a day of general love-making named for him. From time immemorial, even from the days when ancient Rome was a rising metropolis, there had been certain customs, the forbears of the present carnivals and speaking pantomimes, current among the Latin races. Among them were the festivals called Lupercalia, held during the month of February, in honor of Februata-Juno, nnd part of their observance: was as follows: A certain number of slips bearing the names of young girls were placed in a box and shaken up; the young men then each drew a slip, and go “chose partners.” The good priests, when these “heathen superstitious customs” came to their knowledge, were much horrified, and immediately set themselves to work to right matters. But the customs were too firmly rooted even for the priests, and they compromised on a solution of the troubles at once easy and effectual. They changed the names of the festivals from those of the heathen gods to those of the Christian saints, which settled the matter, and made their celebration lawful, and even laudable. In the general reconstruction Saint Valentine drew Feb. 14, and so comes down to the present in the character of the patron saint of lovers.

Out of these old customs has grown the present method of sending valentines. It has lost most of its significance, and the love-lorn verses of amorous swains have

given place to ready-made rhymes, turned out of a nineteenth century factory at so much per line. St. Valentine’s day is. as generally observed as ever, though a great part of the celebrating is done by the children, and most of the valentines are constructed to suit their pocketbooks, with machine-made fat-faced cupids and startling sprays of forget-me-nots. The higher-priced valentines, however, the silk and satin, and celluloid ones, are all hand-painted, and though the work is done as rapidly as possible, many of them are really beautiful. The secret of their manufacture at the price, which is always low for hand-painted work, lies in the fact that, though no two are alike, there is little variety in them. Cupids, flowers, and bleeding hearts furnish the usual subjects. By a close application to business a man may learn to make bleeding hearts and Cupids almost mechanically, and with a surprising rapidity. The work is done with water colors and a car Ts hair brush, and a few strokes applied by an experienced hand finish a valentine, it is possible for one man to turn out ajt many as 500 hand-painted valentines in one day. The satin ones are the hardest to paint, and, as a natural consequence, command the highest price. Some of them cost as much as S2O apiece. From 5,000 to 10,000 of the cheap valentines, those with a verse and sundry cupids, surrounded with lace paper, are turned out in a day by a single factory. The work is all done by machinery; first the printing of the verse, next that of the colored picture, then the cutting and folding, and lastly the addition of the lace paper, which is pasted on after all other parts are complete. The comic valentine is an excrescence of the present. It is a widespread evil, too, for one firm gets out as many as 15,000,000 of them annually and employs 400 workmen the year round. But in spite of the 15,000,000 comics the comic valentine is a small part of the celebration, and though certain objectionable persons have their shortcomings laid before them in a strong light, and though certain other and wholly inoffensive persons are annually rendered insane with rage at what they consider gratuitous insults, the general trend of St. Valentine's day missives still stays by the good old rhyme of heart and dart, eyes and sighs, and other combinations almost as old as St. Valentine himself.