Nevada County picayune., 1890-11-27
A THANKSGIVING SKETCH. What Mrs. Frank Leslie Thinks of
 this Great Postal Day.

Not so many years ago we all felt that Thanksgiving was purely New England festival, and 1 am afraid some of us vaguely associated it with baked beans and pork, or salt cod fish, 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 fraternity 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 ard less sectional and more and more national. One symptom of thls growing unity is the growing observance of Thanksgiving daY in the middle, western and southern States.
 Its appointment year by year from the White House, instead of each State selecting it's own day, is great step, and another is the ever increas- ing facilities of travel which carry eastern people west and south to per petuate their beloved Feast, or on the other hand, makes it quite possi bic for the scattered children to come home from California or Ore gon or Florida in five or six days, eat some of "mother's plum pudding and mince pies" and return to baS- mess before they have had time to grow cold.
 Of course to many of Us Christmas is q dearer and more important day, and one devoted to family reunions long before the Pilgrims saw Ply mouth or the Cavaliers landed at Jamestown but usage is stronger than reason in many minds, and in some of the States Christmas was for al least two centuries almost for gotten feast, and in New York it's place was usurped by New Years day, as in New England by Thanks giving.
 The Dutch had suffered so cruelty at the hands of Spain, the stronghold of Roman Catholicism. that their Re- formed Church, the church of early Manhattan, abhorred the observan- ces of Rome quite as much as they abhorred the devil, and were in their way quite as utra-Protestant as the Puritans of New England in theirs.
 These latter were so careful to avoid correspondence with Papisti- cal usages that their day of fasting, of prayer meetings and of all peni- tpniial obscrvances was Thursday which in the Roman church was next to Sunday as a gala day, while Fri l day was with the puritans the usual day for any sort of merry making.
 The oldest of all these transposi- | tions, however, was removing the weekly fish dinner from Friday to Saturday, on which latter day every we'll regulated New England family sat down to what was called "salt fish dinner" which seems, according to tradition, to have been 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 lad without bending in a copper fish kettle and steeped, but not boiled. The outer fish were 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 dime" of olden times in Massachusetts, and the "servival of the Attest" is seen in the fish balls that still grace every Sunday morning breakfast table in New England.
 Of course we all know that the Thanksgiving feast was established in the first years of their pilgrimage by the Puritans as a real and person. al Thanksgiving to God for the har- vest which came to the starving emi- grants, and the game and fish that swarmed in tho autumn upon their shores.
 It used to be matter of con- science to pile the board with part of everything grown upon the farm beef, pork and poultry, with speci- mems of all the vegetables and dain- ties, compounded as for as possible ! of native products.