Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1863-11-03
NOTICE.

ali IlT ~ ,,Tessu1iuE them Immediately r
HsTi1F leased my bank to Mr. John Waterhonse,
1 RECOMMEND him to my old cnatomeFs and me pub
lie ny f5spds who have 50 literally pAtronized
me In years gone by, beg leave to return nay SIM
cers thanks -JnI1Ay NToTaN
pOTS-lt 80 : : = SOta1S tS0-AS:
ng HAILow EEN.-Most OF our city
,eaders will have occasion to remember
that last Saturday evening was HallOw
Zen. a brief history of the occasion may
not be embarrassing. The first of No;
vember was one of the four great festivals
of onr Pagan ancestors, aud was celebrat-
ed by the kindling of fires in conspicuous
places and the performance of certain GER
euonies, which practice of kindling fires
was kept up in Wales. Ireland, and by the
Scottish Highlanders, until very recently.
The fires used to he kindled upon All Saints
Eve. But in as much as the observance of
All Hallow Day is of a Pagan character,
il must be of older date than the introduc-
ton of Christianity, and it must have as
sumed since then, its character of All
Saints Day. The first of November was
also formerly re garded in some parts, as
the proper day for returning thanks for
the realized fruits of the earth. In Ireland
it used to be called the day of the apple
fruit. and was celebrated with a drink or
a mess composed of bruised roasted apples
among ale or milk. The name of this
drink was corrupted from the Celtic into
lanE,s ssool. Hallowmas has been cele-
bratsd in many ways, one being the ring
ing of bells; another mode was that of
baking a cake for each member of the
family, soul mass cake or soul cake and pas
ties and fGrmey were incidental to the
same evening. In some families guam
tity we're baked to give to visitors, or to
be distributed among the poor, who used
to 90 souling as they called it, that is,
begging in kind of chant for soul cakes.
The festive aud fortune telling procliVi-
ties of Halloween are the ones which are
mostly kept up nowadays. Nuts are
used for divination, and are cracked and
eaten, hence iu many places this eve is
called Nut crack Night. Gay, the poet,
says in "The Spell :"
1.-TWO hazel nuts threw into the flame,
And to each nut gave sWeethearts names
The with the IUudest bounce me sore amazed,
That, In "a fame of brightest color blazed;
As blAzed the nut, 50 may thy passions grow,
Por'tWaS thy nut that did 80 brightly glow
Charles Graydon, Burns aud other poets
have sung of the nut.burning practice on
Halloween. Apples are also exclusively
eaten on this eve. The fortune-te telling
customs we're numerous, for instance: the
girls would pull stalks from a corn stalk,
and profess thereby to discover an inter-
esting point in their history; to eat an
apple at looking glass, expecting to see
avision of the future husband peeping over
the shoulder; to SOW hemp seed in the
yard saying, "Hemp seed SOW thee, hemp
seed l SOW thee, and her that is to be my
true love come after me and draw thee"
expecting that on looking over the shoul-
der, vision will be obtained of the future
spouse in the act of pulling hemp. We
might give many more of these customs,
but think those already given sufficient to
show their absurdity. The present OBJ.
survance of Halloween consists generally
in meetings of young persons, aud pIen-
tiful store OF nuts and apples being pro-
vided, when amusoments are Practiced.-
Burning nuts to test the duration of love
and friendship is still favorito experiment.
Docking for apples in tub nearly full of
water is laughable. a cross-stick sus-
pended by string from the ceiling, with
short burning candle on one end and an
spple on the other, aud whilst swinging
rapidly round, eudeavoriug to catch the
apple with the teeth, gives many lads and
lassies slight taste of tallow-