The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-12-22
house politician is good enough for an
Assemblyman.


solstlce, when Phabus Apollo. driving
the solar chariot toward the Antarctic Pole,
stays his weary steeds for q moment and
poises himself for his joyous progress
northward. TWAS also the day set apart
In the church calendars for honoring the
doubling apostle" who required tangible
evidence before he would believe the latest
and greatest of the Christian miracles. The
day thus devoted to the prototype Of all
sceptics coincides very appropriately with
the moment when solar light and heat are
at their apqgee, when the darkness can be
felt and almost cut with knife.
st. Thomas gray. st. Thomas gray
The longest night and the shortest day
should, if our chronology were q really
scientific one, based upon the eternal
fixity of astronomical facts, be the date of
the new year; and indeed it is probable
that our year was intended as an approx
nation to the true solar epoch, minute
accuracy being prevented by the fact that
the winter solstice occurs in the middle of
a month instead of at the end. The philoso-
pliers of the French Revolution, in REFORM
ing their calendar, attained this objects
except that they chose TO make the year
commence at the autumnal equinox (Sep-
TENDER 21) instead Of the winter solstice,
and in SO doing they merely reverted to the
ancient astronomical year Of the Hebrews
and the Ohaldeans. There are many who
believe that the rising Of ''the Sun Of right
eousness with healing in his wings"
was expressly typified by the assignment
of the birth Of Christ to this moment of
deepest darkness before dawn. when
'Light, more light r. is the despairing cry
heard from the abyss of cosmical gloom.
Be this as it may, the renewal Of light and
life dates from the winter solstice in the
social world no less than in the astronom-
ical year. Christmas and New Years are
close at hand, and henceforth we are in full
saturnalia. Millions of kindly souls are
now intent upon the selection Of gifts with
which they will gladden. the hearts of chill
dren, friends and lovers. Many and mirth-
full are the legendary tales, the symbolic
practices and the half credited supersti-
tions connected with this period. Books
of fairy lore are in especial request by
young and old. Ornaments in the form of
horseshoe have ever been exceedingly
popular, and this year, as never before, the
fashion has set in this direction. 1t is we'll
known that the horseshoe possesses the
magic virtue of warding all evil from its
favored possessor and of conciliating to his
service the sprites and elves of field, forest
and flood. What more appropriate New
Years gift, then, could the master wizard
of our time make to his countrymen than
'lucky horseshoe" which should at
the same time be magic lamp
more practically useful in this workday
world than the perilous marvels wrought
by Aladdinp What more wonderful fairy
tale was ever invented by Arabian imagine
ton than the simple chronicle which the
HERALD presented to sceptical generation
on st. Thomas Day OF the triumphs
achieved by ''that marvellous boy, that
sleepless SOUL" Thomas Alva Edison The
record of his fifteen months wrestling with
the most hidden problems of the physical
universe will forever render memorable the
annals of the current year. which is SO
crowned by an invention sin it's simplicity
sublime" One Of the strongest and most
enduring things in the world proves to be
the mere cinder of scrap OF paper. Hence
forth manual of fairy lore will be as indis-
pensable to the scientific man as his rows
of cyclopmdias and technical dictionaries.
The Wizard of Menlo Park, after
nourishing youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science and the long results
Of time.
takes his countrymen into his secret, and
on New Years Eve will present them with
the 'lucky horseshoe" the magician's
problems in heaven and earth than are
dreamt of in the current PHILOSOPHERS. Great
is Cinderella and Tom Edison il her pro-
phet