The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-07-19
How to Insure Rain.

How to Insure Rain.
One of our city cotemporariesJan and one,
too, always strong on propriety and decorum,
in it's issue of last Monday>afternoon, notes
the failure of the Firemen's picnic, on the
day before, owing te>the bad weather.
Yes! the day before was Sunday, and the
naughty the firemen, were sufficiently
far from plymouth Rock to think of ven
turing>6ut into the green meadows, on that
day, for amusement What followed3 A
Ibig rain and a postponement.
So far, facts; but what are facts without
deductions from themf They are, like the
barren fig tree, fruitless; and our practical
neighbor could not think of giving space in
its intellectual orchard to such an encum-
brance; hence, a moral had to be appended.
Now, though our neighbor has always
enjoyed peculiar reputation as being
weatherwise, and these facts, therefore,
| came within it's special domain, yet, the
inference which it drew from them, the
scientific results which it found to follow
their analysis, were SO startling that it
actually shrunk, in modesty, from the re-
sponsibility of the discovery, and took
refuge behind the skirts of lady. We
regret to say that our neighbor ungallantly
calls the lady "old!"
The principle thus discovered and ushered
into the sceptical world of science is no less
than this: that the projected celebration of
the firemen produced the rain. One step
more would fix the rule that good showers
could be obtained weekly, throughout the
dry and dusty season, by arranging picnic
for every Sunday.
Our neighbor more than hints that the
rain was direct visitation of Providence
on impiety, and recommends that the fire.
men select another day for their festival.
This theory is open to several doubts. In
the first place, we have consulted our CITY
surveyor on the weather, and he says that
whenever the river is falling rapidly there
is, generally, good deal of rain. Then,
again, If the picnic, and not the river, was
the cause of the rain, why should it rain
regularly every day for about week, as it
has done lately, last Sunday being one of
the days includedf And why should those
rains extend over a large tract of territory,
as has been the case And why do firemen,
volunteer companies and others, frequently
have their festivities on Sundays without a
cloud in the sky or an accident of any kind
to mar the Occasionf
We know not what may have been the
nature of the proceedings intended; but if
they were amusements which would have
been respectable and proper on any other
day, they would certainly not have become
improper by being INDUCED in on Sunday;
and if sufficient portion of the day were
allowed for the worship of God, none but q
Pharisee could find fault.
If our respectable neighbor thinks it
nothing but right that rain should stop the
amusement of men who, unlike some of its
friends, can spare no other day from toll,
why ought not the rain to come down also
on house that may happen to catch fire on
Sunday, and thus prevent or stop their
rork7 We hope our neighbor is not of the
ultra Plymouth Rocky school, who hold that
amusement is worse than work, because it
is only God who has prohibited the latter,
while the blue laws of Massachusetts have
prescribed the former.
1t would not be our province, however,
to guard our gentle firemen against an in
sidious theology which would, at any rate,
have no more effect on them than the theo-
logical rain aforesaid would have had on an
alligator; but we regard the whole lecture
as merely prelude to the modest an
nouncement which slips in casually at the
end, to-wit: that the picnic of st. Josephs
Church, for the same day, was also failure.
Now, let it be engraved, on an imperish-
able monument placed on the top of Ply
mouth Rock, for the information of it's vo-
taries, that the other Church, founded on