Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1882-12-24
THE CHRISTMAS TURKEY.

Martyrs Lnere nave Deeu III oil ages
and in all lands every since the world
began; and to their glory be it said that
whether victims in defense ola principle
or of an idea they have done noble work
in elevating the morals, the mind and
the manners of mankind. Historians
have sounded their praises in solemn
prose, bays have been wreathed about
their brows by the poets, while in the
popular heart their names and deeds
live on Immortality; and in this glorify-
ing of their memories is their sufficient
reward. But there is one martyr whose
annually recurring martyrdom excites
no special comment of praise; who suf-
fers unstayed by the knowledge that
his sacrifice will linger long within the
memory and upon the lips of men;
who passes from us through the flames
with naught to sustain him save the
calm inward conviction that his loss
is many others gain. Need it be said
that We refer to the Christmas turkey?
From his entrance into this trouble
some world, an entrance heralded by
delicate piping and chipping at his
shell, as though in modesty he knocked
at the door of the world before enter
ing, even until his exit is effected
midst the savory incense of sweet
smelling herbs and to the accompani-
ment of leave offering OF cranberry
sauce, the turkeys life is one of gentle,
unobtrusive excellence-that rises to a
climax of self-forgetful devotion in the
act that brings it majestically to an
end. Out in the pleasant country,
where his youth and young maturity
are passed, he is a gracious, self-reliant
bird, the first object of whose being, as
it would seem, is to give the least posi-
BILE trouble. Chickens are a pre-
cious lot of bother to everybody
connected with them, requiring
an inordinate amount of food and
also houses to sleep in-houses which
are an irresistible temptation designed
by the evil one to wreck the moral char
acters of all the colored people in the
neighborhood. But the turkey Is not as
chickens are. He knows how to take
care of himself. He is q good forager,
and he roosts upon trees-to the con-
fusion ofthe children of HAM. Yet I'M
resistingly he consents to be penned as
the dark days of December are at hand;
with an affable dignity peculiarly his
own he eats of the grain given him and
wakes fat for the sacrifice; and when
the sacrificial moment arrives he lays
his life down with scarcely an expostu-
latory gobble and comes starkly to
market with his neck bound up decor
ously in white rsg-losking like de-
funct elderly gentleman in ehoker
collar. And in his death his bounty is
distributed with an even claw: wealth
to his slayer; the happiness which at
tends upon him whose jerkin is well
lined to them in whose interest he is
slain.
Surely, then, the Christmas turkey is
martyr whose deeds, though humble,
are yet glorious, and whose deserts are
great. Let US not step martyring him
that would indeed be folly, depriving
him, since he but lives that he may die,
of an object in life, and depriving our
selves Of the most succulent and tooth
some of the dainties of Christmas-tide-
but let us recognize in-him the same
merits which we accord to the other
martyrs with whose praises the world
ever is ready to sing. Let us eat him
henceforth ina reverent, loving spirit
as the missionaries are eaten by the
simple-hearted. kindly heather of the
South seas-suffering not our appetites
to diminish, but rather enlarging them
by the sauOe-like tincture of respect AMI