Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-02-09

.,NErA EMHh34 L Juno, ,uuElHS PeD-
EaVsC1 ruary, at which
tablets b caring
young m ms
y names were drawn
IL out Of box by
the young men. Each person drawing be-
came the faithful attendant of her whose
name he had drawn until the next Luper-
Gala. The close association thus engendered
often resulted in marriage between the
parties. This matrimonial lottery was held
during the Lupercalia festival because
birds were believed to elect their mates at
that time OF year, tradition still attaching
to St Valentines Day and referred to by
Shakespeare when he makes Thessus say in
Nights Dream"
st. Valentine Is past:
Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
The hardest task of the early Christian
fathers was to induce the Roman people to
abandon heather festivities. To do this
they divested all such observances of undue
solemnity while retaining all their social
aspects and associating them with some per-
sons or things pertaining to the church.
They replaced the Lupercalia with st. Val
entine's Day. thus retaining the date of the
ancient festival and connecting it with
Christianity through great saint, who suf-
fered martvrdom in the third century. He
was first beaten with clubs while priest at
Rome where his remains now rest in the
Church of st. Praxedes. So this excellent
man never either directly or indirectly bore
any relation whatsoever to the observances
and ceremonies peculiar to the day devoted
to him.
WOULDN'T GIVE UP THE CUSTOM.
The good churchmen found 1t impossible
to persuade the common people to entirely
abandon any ceremony to which they had
become deeply attached. Despairing, there
fore, of abolishi e the matrimonial lottery
of the Lupercalia, they modified its form,
and endeavored to give it religious char
acter by substituting the names of particular
saints to be drawn as valentines instead OF.
| the names of men and women. From this
| ancient usage is derived the custom, still
occasionally observed in some Catholic
| countries, of selecting on st. Valentine's
Day for the ensuing year, q. patron saint
| who is called valentine. But .heeyoung
men and maidens finding little amusement
| in drawing out the names of dead and gone
saints, soon reiapsed into their old Gus
tom Of drawing each other, and even at the
present time in many OF the rural districts
OF England anu Scotland it is customary on
the eve of St Valentines Day, for the
Young people of both sexes to draw lots for
| valentine. As the men draw from bag
| containing the names of the maids, while
| tine latter draw from one containing the
names of the men, it generally happens that
each person has two valentines, but the
young men regard themselves much more
strongly bound to the valentine they have
| drawn than to the one who has drawn them.
| If as sometimes happens, young man and
woman should each chance to draw the
other it is regarded as absolutely certain
that they are destined to wed and must not,
under any circumstances, permit their at
| tentions or affections to center elsewhere.
During the reign of Charles II, as we
| learn from that most interesting and curious
record of the domestic lite of that period
preserved Cor US in the diary OF Mr.. Pepys;
married people were equally eligible with
single ones for the lottery of St. Valentines
eve, and any one chosen as a valentine was
in honor bound to give present to the per-
son choosing him or her.
LIGHT ON THE ENGLISH WAY.
On st. Valentines Day, 1867, Mr.. Pepys
writes: ':This morning came up to my
wife's bedside q being up dressing myselD
little Will Mercer to be her valentine, and
brought her name written upon blue paper
in gold letters, done by himself, very pretty,
and we were both pleased with it. But I
am also this rear my wife'syalentihe, and it
will cost me IS; but that must have laid
out il we had not been valentines. +"
On February l6 OF the same year-two days
later-he again writes: II find that Mrs.
| Pierce's little girl is nv valentine, she hav-
ing drawn me, which am not sorry for, 1t
easing me Of something more that must
have given to others. But here do first
observe the fashion of drawing notices as
we'll as names, so that Pierce, who drew my
vile, did draw also motto and this girl
drew another Tor me. What mine was I
forget, but my wife's was Most courteous
and most fair which, as it may be used, as
an anagram upon each name might be very
pretty"
Again, alluding to the obligation resting
upon a chosen valentine to give a present
to the person choosing, he writes of the
celebrated Miss Stuart, afterward Duchess
of Richmond: "The Duke of York, being
once her valentine, did give her a jewel Of
about 9SO0; and my Lord Vaudeville, her
valentine this year, ring of about 2300. "
In February, 1868, he makes the following
entry: ''This evening nv wife did, with
great pleasure, show me her stock of jewels,
as my valentines gift this year, Turkey
stone set with diamonds. With this and
what she had she reckoned that she hath
above R15o worth OF jewels of one kind
or other; and am glad of it, tor it is fit
the wretch should have something to content
herself with.
Good Mr.. Pepys here uses the word wretch
as an endearing term.
Admirers OF Sir Walter Scott will re-
member that he also alludes to this custom
of giving valentine presents, and will
readily recall the passage in the "Fair Maid
of Perth" in which he describes the little
ST. Valentines Day gift which the mighty
armorer, Henry Smith, had prepared for
his valentine. the good and beautiful Cathe-
rine Glover: SIT was a small ruby cut into
the form of a heart, transfxed with golden
arrow, and was inclosed in small purse OF
links of the finest work in steel, as If it had
been designed for a hauberk to a king.
Round the verge of the purse were these
words:
loves darts
Cleave hearts
Through mail shirts
'This device had caused the armorer
some thought, and he was much satisfied
with his own composition, because it seemed
to imply that his skill could defend all