The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1886-01-28
NHN 0NTON


There IS little doubt that the onion il
the Oldest vegetable known 20 mankind.
The native plant, the album eepa. the
rarenf all cultivated onions, Is not .
native Of this country. Cortez, when
relating incidents Of his brilliant con-
quests IN Mexico. is reported by Hum
bolGk to have said he saw onions in the
market place Of the ancient Tenochtit-
Ian. and that the Mexicans called these
onions xonacatl. But carefully inquiry
shows that the name xonaca1 does not
apply to our cultivated species of album:
In the seventeenth century only one sin
gle album was reported from Jamaica,
and that was our species; and it was In
the garden with other vegetables from
Europe. Acosta, IN his '.NatUral His
tory Of the Indies" says expressly that
the onions Of Peru were brought from
Europe. To Europe, then, we must go
on the track of the first onion Any
European viii say that onions have al
ways been cultivated there.
Shakespeare mentions the onion In
his midsummer Nights Dream" Bot
tom, . weaver, giving final directions to
Ouince, the carpenter, Flute, the bel
lows member, Shout, the tinker, and
Stravelin1 the tailor-all humble folks
who are about to present play before
the duke and his party, after telling
them to 60 home and attend to this, that
and the other, says:
"And most, dear actors, eat no on
ions, nor garlic. for we are to utter sweet
breath; and / do not doubt but to heal
them say 1t is
A SWEET COMEDY"
When Helena, at the close of '.A1l't
Well That Ends Well" finds at the
| same time her husband and her mother
| the old Lord Lafen exclaims:
~Aline eyes smell onions; shall weep anonP
| In the introduction to the Tanning
| of the Shrew." the lord, sending in
| structions to his page TO enact the par
/ of wife to the drunkard whom they ar
about to betOol, says:
/ "Bind him and shed tears,
i And II the boy have not 6 woman s gift.
10 rain 3 shower of commanded tears,
4 An onion will do well for such shift.
Shall we find our first onion in En-
gland? No its very name tells us tina
L is no native. Onion is merely tn
English way Of pronouncing the FrencI
oiGnon, and by the French, at som
time or other, the onion bulb wa
brought into England. Chaucer, wit
ing 500 years ago, mentions the ohio
as q well-known domestic vegetable
Norman Conquest, and ] think we ma
take another 200 and say that 100
| wears ago the onion was making il
way into England. A thousand year
sweeps away the history of England
, and leaves a small Island, torn with tt
/ strife of its recent Saxon conqueror
and harrassed with sea pirates, an
. land almost unknown to the nations @
! the continent. Another 1000 years an
Britain is an island lying far away fro
: civilization.
, Two thousand years, then, takes l
back to the border land between a
Gent and modern history. Anoth
thousand and few years more and v
hear the groans of the Hebrews
Egypt as they drag the heavy stones
D the massive forts of Ramses and Pitho
g or make their daily tale of bricks und
the sharp gaze of guards who star
over them with rods. Then
A SUCCESSFUL CONSPIRACY
Q is made, and the Hebrews under Mos
J, and Aaron throw off the yoke of Pharat
p and defeat him on the shores of the r
q Sea; and we hear the songs of trium]
of these emancipated slaves as they ia
). their first steps in freedom. UnthOug
!, of difficulties appear. The journey
| L
holiday of pleasure. Some present p
: vations seem harder to bear than t
h late fearful slavery, and, praising t
It good old times, they revile Moses al
y ask him, bitterly. ''Who shall give
flesh to eat? We remember the fl
is which we did eat in Egypt freely, t
= cucumbers and the melons, and t
d leeks and the onions and the garlic
e And these onions whose flavor could
y better remembered than the hardships
q tyranny. Can they be of the same 81
n oies as our onions of to-day? Certain
Il they are. They are grown in Egypt
is this day, and called now, by the We
n name used for them by masters al
= slaves when Israel was there in bon
age.
s Seven thousand years have pass
'e since the building of the first pyrami
It Yet even then Egypt was an old cou
o try; its people civilized. Ten thsusal
'e years ago the onion was brought in
= Egypt, and from whereP 1t was broug
= from India. History can tell us
more. The sacred writings of the Hi
docs and the oldest records of the q
nese mention the onion as a cultivat
plant, but always cultivated. If :
would find our first onion, we mi
le leave history and try some other line
D, inquiry. We join the botanists a
continue our search, and we find OIL
"a selves climbing the mountains of
ghanistan and Beloochistan, and {
. ploring the table lands behind {
Hindu Kush mountains. And there,
:. the birthplaces of mankind, we fl
= our onion-the album cepa-frc
Il which have sprung all the onions grow
d all over this wide world. On the INC
n uments of Egypt the onion is call
batzel, the name it goes by in Egypt
d the present day.-Net0 York Sun.