Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1885-04-02
Reign of the Egg.

The Pittsburgh Commercial-Gazette
bias the following, appropriate to the
Easter season:
with the coming of the Easter sea-
son, comes the reign of the egg. From
time beyond the age where history gets
down to plain dates, the egg has been
the symbol of spring, and its position
seems to be all the more assured with
each succeeding year. The Jews used
eggs in the feast of the Passover, before
that the Persians used them in their eel
ebration of the solar new year in March,
and in more recent times the psgans of
Germany offered eggs at the shrine OF
the Goddess Ostara, or Eastre, from
whom the word Easter is derived Be
fore the Christian era the use of the egg
was symbolical of the revivi6catiOn of
nature, the springipg forth of new life
in the spring. When the ancient fathers
in their work of conversion turned the
heather celebration into Christian fes-
tival, as they did with so many others,
Easter was made emblematic of the res+
direction and the future life.
"The Easter egg was known as the
Pasch egg at first. then as the Pace egg,
and finally as the Easter egg. Through
all Europe the same term was used.
With the French it was Paques, with
the Scots Pascb, with the Dutch Pas
chen, with the Danes Paaske. and with
the Swedes Pask. Records of the early
ceremonies contain allusions to colored
eggs exchanged and given as presents
ON Easter Sunday. In the days of Ed
ward L. the English people were taxed
eighteen pence to pay for their sover-
eign's Easter gifts. but for that sum be
9 1t four hundred eggs. colored and orna-
mented. Eggs were cheaper in those
DAYS than these.
Within the last hundred years the cur
rent literature of date preceding Easter
always contained Instructions for the
Preparation of the egg. An old striped
stocking, gone beyond all usefulness as
footgedr, was recommended as a good
article for coloring, and the more varie
g lted the pattern the better. OBiOn skins
and SCOT, cochineal and a score of other
articles within reach of the average
housewife were recommended and were
used. In these times the hOmely old
methods, to which doubts of their "tak-
ing" added charm, have been dispensed
with, and in their place are the neat
little packets of dyes sold by any drug>
gist for this particular purpose. They
produce better colUrs, but who believes
they afford as much pleasure?
The home made Easter egg has for
midable rival in the manufactured arti-
Gle, turned out by the hundreds in more
or less artistic shape by scores of estab-
lishments. The jewellers and the sta
tioners display on their counters eggs of
all kinds. Real eggs. pasteboard eggs,
metal eggs, painted and engraved, hinged
cracked and in pieces. Over them all
the cunning of the artists brush has
been spread, and they are really thing
of Leauty. There they end, for they are
much too frail to be JOY forever. The
Easter cards, too, which have been an
enemy to the egg, as rule, bear an egg,
or going a step forward, chicken, in
some shape or other. The remarkable
thing this year is that there are really
a few new designs in Easter cards. Two
years ago the chicken was the rage, and
cocks, hens and peeps were the rage, but
the fancy of the people has rather turned
back to the egg and the egg is in the ad-
vance again.