The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1894-12-29

alludes to this custom in the Aud
Farmers Address to His Mare"
Christmas has not always been a day
of peace in American history. Many
times the yule logs have blazed amid
surroundings of carnage and slaughter.
Some of these days are memorable.
During the Christmas week of 1914.
jackson held the approaches to New
Orleans with less than 5000 troops, some
small gunboats and few scattered gar
risons, against British fleet of so men
of-war mounting over 1000 guns, and
with total force of 10000 men. Coch-
rane, the British admiral had boosted /:
Il shall eat my Christmas dinner in
New Orleans" and the remark being
carried to Jackson, the taciturn old hero
quietly observed: Perhaps so, but I
shall have the honor of presiding" AT
ter days of desultory fighting, all I'M
favorable to the English, Major General
Pakenham, a famous soldier and
brother-in-law to the Duke of yelling
ton, on Christmas morning arrived in
camp and assumed the British COM
mand. He succeeded in blowing up
couple of gunboats, while jackson.
armed with a telescope which he had
borrowed from an old Frenchman.
watched the operation from the attic
window of a farmhouse. He ate his
Christmas dinner on the field, and Coch-
rane ate his on his flagship. The boast
of victory was unfulflled, for the Brit
ish flag went down amid smoke and
slaughter in the great battle that fol-
lowed two weeks later.
According to old custom the Yule sea-
son lasted from Christmas eve until
Twelfth Night, period of nearly a fort
night, all of which was regarded as
more or less a holiday over the Chris
tian world.
During the stalwart times of Queen
Elizabeth in England the Christmas
holidays lasted over a month. Those
were times when the logs famed and
roared, when the boars' heads and bar
becues smoked, and fun and frolic and
boisterous mirth ragged furiously
through the wee short hours"
A custom which is called hunting
the wren" is generally practiced by the
peasantry of the south of Ireland on st.
Stephens day 1t bears a close resem-
blance to the Manx proceedings de-
scribed by Waldron-as taking place,
however, on a different day. ION the,
oath of December" says that writer, in
his account of the Isle of Man, toward
evening, the servants in general have a
holiday; they do not go to bed all night,
but ramble about till the bells ring in
all the churches, which is at II O'Clock.
Prayers being over, they go out to hunt
the wren, and, after having found one
of these poor birds, they kill her and
lay her on bier with the utmost solem-
nifty bringing her to the parish church,
and burying her with a whimsical kind
of solemnity, singing dirges over her
in the Manx language, which they call
her knell; after which Christmas be-
gins"
1t was in 1910 when Albert became
Prince Consort that the Christmas tree
was added to the royal festivities in
England
For the first century, colonial life,
especially in New England, had few
holidays. The Puritans hated the Eng
lish church festivals with such persist
ent zeal that they frowned on the pub
lie celebration of all alike, Christmas
being their special detestation. A few
Independent spirits chung to the Gus
toms of their forefathers and observed
Christmas, but the majority studiedly
ignored it. Even when the Church of
England succeeded in establishing
Christmas service in Boston, Governor
Belcher favoring them, the Judge and
other public dignitaries made open war
against it. AS late as 1892 the only
recognized holidays were Election,
Commencement, Training Day and
The stern conscientious
ness that cut down the Maypoles at
Merrymount and Charlestown in 1923
and 1887 and which held the eating of
pancakes on Shrove Tuesday to be
"heathenish vanity" could even less
endure the pompous mirth and roys-
tering of the Yuletide festival, Not un-
til the opening of the present century
was it regarded as a holiday in New
England, although for nearly score
of years before, many families had
made Christmas two weeks season of
in which planters and slaves
A CHRISTMAS PFENNIG.