The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1869-05-01
MAY and mayDay.


thew made several expiations, they pro-
hibited marriage in May. On the first
dav of Nav the Roman ladies sacrificed
to Bona Dsa, the Good Goddess, or the
Earth, represented in ancient pictures
with the zodiacal signs of the celestial
system, which influences our sphere to
produce its fruits in due order. With
some of the Christian churches May is
called the month of Mary (being more
particularly dedicated to the Virgin,
and is marked by more than ordinary de-
yotion. In many churches, even in this
country, the statues and pictures of the
Virgin are to-day crowned with flowers.
Where May-day is still observed,
many forms of commemOration remain
the rude and imperfect outlines of
former splendor blended with local Pc
culiarities. The festival appears to
have originated about A. NJ. 1850, and
before Christ 242 years, in consequence
of a celebrated courtezan, named Flora,
having besueathed her fortune to the
people of Rome, that they should at this
time yearly celebrate her memory in
dancing and other excuses
from whence these revels were called
Floralia, or May games. After some
years the Senate of Rome exalted Flora
amongst their thirty thousand deities,
as hr-goddess of flowers, and COM
manded her to be .worshipped that she
might protect their flowers, fruits and
herbs. During the Catholic age in Eng
land great portion of extraneous cere-
mony was infused into the celebration,
but that the excuses and lawless mis-
rule attributed to this Floralian festival
BY the fanatic enthusiasts of the Crom-
wellian age existed is indeed greatly to
be doubted. 1t was celebrated IS ma
tional festival, an universal expression
Of Joy and alteration, at the commence
ment of season when nature devel-
ops her beauties, dispenses her boun-
ties and watts her "spring gales" rich
with voluptuous fragrance, to exhilarate
man and enliven the scenes around him.
In an old volume by Henry Mission,
published in London in 1893, was des-
cription of popular English amuse-
ments, and his account of the May day
festival was to the following effect:
On the first of May, and the five or six
days following, all the young and pretty
peasant girls, who are accustomed to.
bear about milk for sale in the city,
dress themselves very orderly and carry
about them number of vases and silver
vessels, of which they make a pyramid,
adorned with ribbons and flowers. This
pyramid they bear on their heads instead
of their ordinary milk pail, and accom-.
panied by certain of their comrades and
the music of fiddle, they go dancing
from door to door surrounded by young
men and children, who follow them in
crowds; and everywhere they are made
some little present.
Aubrey remarks that he never remem-
bers to have seen a Maypole in France;
but he says that in Holland he has seen
them frequently.
1t was formerly custom in Cheshire,
for young men ito place
birchen boughs on Mayday over the
doors of their mistresses, and mark the
of a scOld by an alder bough.
1t is noticed in the London Morning
Post of the I'd of May, 1871, that the
day before, "being the LIST of May, &C
nording to the annual and superstitious
custom, a number of persons went into
the fields and bathed their ia ces with
the dew on the grass, under the idea
that it would render them beautiful"
We hear of no general preparations
hereabouts for May-day celebration.
Our people are essentially utilitarian,
wise and business-like. We discard old
suPOiotitiona. old traditions, aye, and
old eDjoyments. Spring Is Will, no ON 90
more, pacing the earth in all the primal
pomp of her beauty, with flowers and
soft airs and the song of birds every
where about her, and the blue sky and
bright clouds above. But we have no
time to stop and hail her approach as
she hastens to bless US, and cannot af-
ford to give day to celebrating her ad-
vent in the fields and woods and way
side copses, or dance delightful meas
ures round flowery offerings as did our
simple ancestors. Even the little child
rem themselves, who have an instinct
for the spring, and feel it to the very
tips of their fingers, are permitted to let
May come upon them without knowing
from whence the impulse of happiness
that they feel proceeds, or whittier it
tends. In short,
al Nuo TN 10 gay
Land and sea
Give themselves up 10 jollity,
And with the heart Of May
Doth every breast keep holiday"
while man alone lets the season come
without glorying in it; and when it goes
he let's it go without regret, as if he
were the lord of all seasons, and they
were to do homage and honor to him,
instead of he to them. Alas, may it not
be, as the poet laments, that
The world is too much with us, late and soon.
Getting and spending, we lay waste our pow.
ers;
Little we see in nature that is ours
We have given our hearts avSy-a sordid boon :"
100. F.-The following officers Of
the Grand Lodge and Grand Encamp-
ment, 1. o. o. F., of West Virginia, were
elected at the session of the Grand
Lodge just closed at Msrtinsburg:
NJ. w. CIR. NJ, ]. P. Davis. Clarksburg.
K. w. D. CIR. NJ, P. Darnell, West
Colombia.
w. OR. w. George Edwards. Mounds