Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-02-16
ST. Valentines Oay.

The 14th day of February, is, or was,
celebrated in England, Scotland,
France and other countries, by a very
peculiar and amusing custum. On the
eve of st. Valentine, the young folks
would assemble and inscribe upon little
billets the names of an equal number
of maids and bachelors of their &C.
quaintance, throw the whole into a re-
ceptacle of some sort, and then draw
them lottery-wise-care, of course be-
ing taken that each should draw one
of the opposite sex. The person thus
drawn became ones valentine. Of
course, besides having got valentine
for ones self, one became, by the uni
versatility of the practice, some other
persons valentine; but, Nilsson a learn
ed traveller in the early part of the last
century, remarks, "The man stuck
faster to the valentine that had fallen
to him, than to her to whom he had fall
len." These imaginary engagements,
as may readily be supposed, often lead
to real ones; because one necessary
consequence of them was, that for a
whole year, a bachelor remained bound
to the service of his valentine, some
what after the fashion of a medieval
knight of romance to his lady-love.
at one period, it was customary for
both sexes to make each other presents,
but latterly the obligation seems to
have been restricted to young men.
During the 18th century this amuse-
ment was very popular among the up.
per classes. and at many European
courts.
For some time back, the festival has
ceased to possess the graceful symbolic
meaning it used to have, and has be.
come considerable nuisance. The ap-
proach of the day is now heralded by
the appearance of the printsellers' shop
windows of vast numbers of missives
calculated for use on this occasion,
each generally consisting of a single
sheet of post-paper on the first page of
which is seen some ridiculous olored
earicature of the male or female figure,
with few burlesque verses below.
The connection of the custom with
st. Valentine is purely accidental. In
the legends Of the different saints of
that name recorded in the Acta Sane
forum, no trace of the practice peculiar
to the 14th of February is found. 1t
has been suggested by Mr.. Douce, in
his Illustrations of Shakespeare, that
the custom may have descended to us
from the ancient Romans, who, during
the Lupercalia, celebrated in the month
OF February, were wont among other
things to put the names of young wo-
men into box, from which they were
drawn by the men as chance directed
and that the Christian clergy, finding it
difficult or impossible to extirpate this
pagan practice, gave it at least a re-
ligious aspect, by substituting the
names Of particular saints for those of
the women; and it is certainly a usage
more or less widely extended in the
Roman Catholic church to select, either
on St Valentines Day or some other, a
patron saint for the year, who is termed
valentine. But it is far more
probable that the custom of choosing
valentines is a relic of theat nature
religion which was undoubtedly the
primitive form of religion in north
western Europe-as elsewhere; and
that 1t sprung from a recognition of
the popularity of the season. Hence
in Bailey's Dictionary the following ex-
PLANTATION is given: about this time
Of the year the birds choose their
mates. and probably thence came the
custom Of the young men and maidens
choosing valentines or special loving
friends on that day