Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-02-14
SAINT VALENTINE.
Something About the Patron of the
Fourteenth of February.
The Custom of Sending Valentines is Said to
Have Had its Origin in an Old
Pagan Festival.
Washington Star.

Washington Star.
st. Valentine, according to some eccle-
siastical writers, was a bishop, while
Others asser: that he was a presbyter,
but they agree that he was beheaded at
Rome in the year 27O, during the reign of
Emperor Claudius, and was soon after
canonized. Star man, in looking up
the history of this venerable saint, has
found that he was said to have been
man of eminent piety and so famous for
his love and charity that the custom of
choosing valentines on his festival took
its rise from thence. - If the practice of
exchanging valentines, or messages of
affection, arose from the observance of
the festival of this saint, the old gentle
man is responsible for much
blighted affection and many
blasted hopes. True, he can comfort
himself in the knowledge that many happy
pairs have been mated through the
medium of valentine, and have lived
thereafter long and useful lives. But
they are like the good who need no re-
pentance, while those who have had their
dispositions soured and their lives made
barren waste by the failure of some one
10 send them a tender valentine, or by
monstrosities known as a comic valen-
tine, even though the sender intended
only harmless fun, are the black sheep
who need repentance but never repent.
AS the ponderosity of evil is greater than
good, the old saint must feel that he is
having q second edition of purgatory
when he contemplates the vast amount
of misery that has had its origin on the
18th of February.
IN JUSTICE TO ST. VALENTINE,
however, who from all accounts was a
very worthy man, it should be said that
although his name has been given to the
one day in the year when the postal
revenues are greatly increased by the
transmission of messages of love or evil
dences of hate, the custom probably took
its rise from a practice prevalent in an
cient Rome at the festival of the Luper-
Gala during the month of February,
when, among other ceremonies, the
names of young women were placed in
box from which they were taken by
young men as chance directed. This
Louisiana lottery way of dispOs-
ing of the surplus young
women of Rome worked well III
some cases and in some ii did not turn out
so well. The augurs insisted that this
method of procedure was directed by the
GOuSy Duo JuC 1OuuS I1Oh VIM OlCn VIZ
men with shrewish or viXenish DISPOSE
tions believed that the neither deities di-
rected the selection. Whether the young
men who drew the names from the box
were chosen by lot or whether they were
drafted for that purpose as young men
are now conscripted for the army is not
known, but it is reported that those who
got bad bargains used to anathematize
the box, and that from this arose the ex-
preston which is used even in these
times:
GIN "A BAD BOX.
The early fathers of the church looked
upon this method of marrying as a sort
Of free-love affair, and of course could
not countenance it. They tried at first
to extirpate this pagan ceremony, but
finding that impossible they proceeded to
change its form They arranged it so
that on the eve of the 14th of February
the names of a select number of one sex
should be put into some vessel by an
equal number of the other sex, and then
every one drew a name, which, for the
time being, was called his or her valen-
tine. This, it will be seen, gave those
preparing the names an opportunity to
select those particularly pleasing to them
and as the coupling was but for day, it
could not lead to any uncomfortable re-
sulLS. III WAS Il bOTG Oh HOOK DeLTOIHd1
and the pairs made by chance furnished
great amusement to those who witnessed
the drawing. The drawing was always
supervised by the local magnates of the
place where the festival was celebrated,
and, as will readily be understood every
ticket was prize, like the grab-bag of a
church fair. Indeed some historians in
sist that this was the origin of the church
fair, although this transaction was much |
more fair than many that have been wit |
messed at some of the fairs in |
recent days. The young people who drew |
and who were drawn were greatly envied |
by their associates and high honors were |
paid to them. Frequently these valen-
tinarin couples became genuinely at |
tached TO each other and then they took |
the chances of married life. Sometimes |
when a young mans luck was against |
him and he didn It draw the name of the |
girl that he wanted, he would trade off |
the one he did get for the one whom he /
desired, and then all would be well. 1t !
is not impossible that the modern practice |
of trading candidates on the day of cleo
ton had its origin in the above practice. |
ANOTHER ALLEGED ORIGIN
of Valentines day is said to be that |
birds were supposed to select their mates
on the l4th of February Shakespeare
gives 0IuG OF JnlS III - midsummer
Nights Dream, - when he SAYS; Saint
Valentine is past; begin these wood birds
but to couple now.'' The Poet Walton
gracefully refers to this tradition as fol-
lows: ''Now all nature seem ID in love.
and the birds had drawn their valen-
tines. -
Whatever its origin, the celebration of
st. Valentine S day is very ancient, and
the observance has increased with the
advance in intelligence and culture In
Shakespeare 8 time it was the custom to
send presents of gloves, carriers and jew
elry, and he recognized the sway that
Cupid had on that day by making poor
Ophelia in her insanity tell her affection
for Hamlet as follows:
Tomorrow is st. Valentine day
All in the morning betime,
And l 8 maid at your window
To be your Valentine.
In doing this Shakespeare followed the
scientific theory that the uppermost
thoughts in the mind always find ex-
travagant expression in cases of insanity
Ophelia IS love for Hamlet was her one
absorbing passion and her grief at find
ing that the affection of the prince,