The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1890-11-21
A THANKSGIVING SKETCH.
What Mrs. Frank Leslie Has to Say oil
the National Feast.

Not SO many years ago we all feIt
that Thanksgiving was a purely New
England festival, and | am afraid some
of us vaguely associated it with baked
beans and pork or salt Goldfish, those
traditional dainties of the northeastern
states, as cabbage is of New York, "hoG
and hominy" of the west and pone'
chicken and gumbo of the south.
But the spirit of union and true fra
ternity are actively at work in our great
nation, and year by year some little
prejudice or some traditional landmark
is removed, and United Statesians are
less and less sectional and more n
more national. One symptom OF thus
growing unity is the growing observance
of Thanksgiving day in the middle, west
ern and southern states.
Its appointment year by year from
the White House, instead of each state
selecting its own day, is a great step,
and another is the ever increasing faclll-
ties of travel which carry eastern people
west and south to perpetuate their be-
loved Feast, or on the other hand, makes
it quite possible for the scattered children
to come home from California or Oregon
or Florida in five or six days, eat some
of "mother's plum pudding and MIN
pies" and return to business before
they have had time to grow cold.
Of course to many of us Christmas is
a dearer and more important day, and
one devoted to family reunions long be-
fore the pilgrims saw Plymouth or the
Cavaliers landed at jamestown; but
usage is stronger than reason IN many
minds, and in some of the states Christ
mas was for at least two centuries al
most a forgotten feast, and in New
York its place was usurped by New
Years day, as in New England BY
Thanksgiving.
The Dutch had suffered SO cruelty at
the hands of Spain, the stronghold of
Roman Catholicism, that their Reformed
Church, the church Of early Manhattan,
abhorred the observances of Rome quite
as much as they abhorred the devil, and
were in their way quite as ultra-Protest-
ant as the Puritans of New England in
theirs.
These latter were so careful to avoid
correspondence with Papistical usages
that their day of fasting, of prayer meet
ings and of all p%enitential observances
was Thursday, which in the Roman
church is next to Sunday as a gala day,
while Friday was with the Puritans the
usual day for any sort Of merry making.
The oldest of all these transpositions,
however, was removing the weekly fish
dinner from Friday to Saturday, on
which latter day every well regulated
New England family sat down to what
was called a "salt fish dinner" which
seems. according to tradition, to have
been a very elaborate affair, for the fish
must be of the quality known as
'dun," and to be perfectly cooked must
be packed between two white fish, the
whole being laid without bending in 4
copper fish kettle and STEPPED, but not
boiled. The outer fish We're then taken
off and thrown away, and the center one
was served whole with white sauce,
pork scraps, young beets, parsnips and
potatoes. This was the traditional salt
fish dinner" of olden times in Massachu-
sets, and the survival of the fittest" is
seen in the fish balls that still grace ev-
cry Sunday morning breakfast table in
New England.
OF course veal know that the Thanks
giving feast was established in the first
years of their pilgrimage by the Puri-
tans as a real and personal thanksgiving
to God for the harvest which came to
the starving emigrants, and the game
and fish that swarmed in the autumn
upon their shores.
1t used to be almost a matter of con-
science to pile the board with a part of
everything grown on the farm-beef,
pork and poultry, with specimens of all
the vegetables and dainties compounded
as far as possible of native products.
But nowadays SO many of US live in
cities and towns that if we feasted only
upon the products of our own labor and
our own hands the majority of Us would
fast, and both the means and the spirit
Of personal thanksgiving have so gone
out of fashion that probably few people
realize the meaning of the word or their
own obligations in regard to it.
Some of us also have but little heart
for the giving of thanks or for rejoic-
ing when we look back at those who
have helped us to rejoice, and for whom
we now sorrow in lonely desolation.
But although we no longer care for the
national feast of delicate food and gen
erous wines because we shrink from the
Thanksgiving toast of absent Friends"
as from a blow, we may yet make the
day a joyous n by giving of our album
dance in material goods to those of our
brethren who have nothing.
For several years I myself, instead of
mourning beside a desolate ~hearthstone,
have been privileged to go on Thanks
giving day to help a friend well known
in philanthropic circles who gives a
really good dinner to some hundreds of
the starving poor of u metropolis.
1t is no play-work; but dressed in the
p~lainest garb We work as hard as walters
in a fifth rate restaurant, and by the time
apronfuls of apples and oranges are
distributed to the ~outpouring guests we
are ready to drop with fatigue, but
warmed to the heart with true and deep
thanksgiving that we have been able to
shed a little CLEAN of pleasure into lives
SO barren and joyless as these.
This is only one way of keeping the
day, and the circumstances and position
of each reader will suggest some other
equally good, but there is one thing
quite certain-that no matter how desc
late ones hearth or however lonely ones