The San Francisco call., 1895-11-24
NOTES ON THANKSGIVING
How It Was Observed in the
Good Old Days of
Puritanism.
WITH PUMPKIN AND TURKEY.
The Gould, Vanderbilt and whitney
Weddings - Chances at New
York's Noted Clerics.

NEW YORK, N. Y, Nov 14.-Time was
Tin my boyhood) when New York City,
with its residential area all below Union
Square, looked askance upon Thanksgiv-
ing amenities and pleasures and seemed to
adopt the New England institution with
more or less hesitation. New York fifty
years ago was more or less provincial, and
had its jealousies and chief of these was
Boston and its Puritan Thanksgiving be-
quest to the Union. But as the city be-
came cosmopolitan its comprehension of
events broadened and Thanksgiving day
grew into favor. In that far-away time a
Thanksgiving holiday came too soon after
New York's peculiar local holiday, Novem-
ber 25, anniversary of the day when
the last of the British troops sailed away
and Washington marched into the city.
Evacuation day discounted the quickly
succeeding THANKSGIVING and robbed it OF
novelty and holiday attraction. But first
the Mexican and then the Civil War made
New York forget its revolutionary patriot
ism, and this year Evacuation day will
scarcely be remembered.
And now the citizens, relieved of the
incubus topic of the Marlborough nuptials
and election skeletons, are preparing far
Thanksgiving. So are the 175 clergymen
of the city who select the day for displays
of oratory. So are the marketmen, who
with Gladstone discuss the affairs of
turkey. Also the plemakers, who, without
understanding the philosophy of Ralph
Waldo Emerson, adore his memory be-
cause be always ate pie for breakfast and
deified it with his rhetoric. Also the pub
fishers, who have of late years added to
Christmas, New Years and Easter Thanks
giving day as an occasion for book presents.
Also the newspaper men, who promise
Thanksgiving stories and Thanksgiving
pictures. Likewise anglers, who find good
luck in catching fish upon Thanksgiving
day, or the sportsman intent upon quail
and venison, or the Germans eager to seek
Indian summer quarters under serried
leafiess trees and there to foam beer and
also foam their language.
Did ever any one stop to consider why,
when we put German in the above plural,
we add an IS" but unlike-as in French-
men and Irishmen--do not turn the end
ing man in the plural of men, but do not
write Germen? Yet is recorded of Noah
Webster by his intimates that when refer
ring to the Teutonics in the plural he al
ways wrote Germen. Your perfect Teuton
at a lump of sugar, and here in New
York he now vies with the New Englander
in celebrating Thanksgiving. How many
pumpkins do you estimate visit New York
during the week preceding the festivals ?
/ asked large dealer in vegetables. Nigh
upon a hundred thousand" he said. L
addressed wholesale poultry-dealer a
kindred question as to turkeys, and he re-
sponded with about the same number.
Rut tho oapf1amap described over po-
lonius in the play of Hamlet"
as an excellent fshmonger" sur
prised me at his Fulton Market (the
New York BiIlingsgate), by saying that in
anticipation of Thanksgiving that ancient
and tishlike place would in she'll and skin
fish display forty varieties. Observing my
look of incred ulity he reminded how coast
ing steam facilities and railways brought
to him this variety from the Pacific and
the St. Lawrence, the fresh water Western
lakes, the Caribbean Sea and all the Won
derful species which abound in the West
ern Hemisphere. He complimented Pres
ident Cleveland for his prowess as fisher
man, and in referring to the bluehsh that
the Whitehousen best affected called that
sea dweller, 1.-The chicken of the sea-" 1t
is an apt and poetic alias, because the
boiled bluetish and the boiled breast of a
chicken are maryelously alike in look and
taste.
The first Thanksgiving day I have been
able to unearth was one proclaimed by the
Archbishop of Canterbury after the battle
of Porchers, and his message ran to this
effect, "all over England for eight days."
In 1906, November (Guy Faux day.. was
made day of Thanksgiving for the Lon
doners, and so continued to them until
1885, when the statute was repealed. Hudi-
bras referred to the event, doubtless, when
he wrote of hero thus:
Thinking he had done enough to purchase
Thanksgiving day among the churches
The Mayfower Pilgrims had their first
yearly Thanksgiving in November, 1921
and menu of a dinner then-to be read
in the Boston ibrary-referred to oysters,
wild ducks, wild turkeys and wild geese
with venison-"all procured from the In
dans." But New York never had a public
Thank day (as the Dutch records express
it) until August II, 1854, when the Dutch
Governor proclaimed one for the peace be-
tween the Netherlands and England. Our
first National THANK" was proclaimed by
the Continental Congress for December
49, 1777, in commemor Grafton of the victory
over Burgoyne.
The tirst Federal Congress in 1889 under
took to proclaim National Thanksgiving,
when the South Carolina mem bers pro-
tested that Congress had no such power
That early did the Palmetto State begin
her historic constitutional growls, which
have continued down to this Tillman era.
But Washington compromised by himself
issuing a Presidential proclamation for
November 26 of that year. He issued an
other in 1896 and then ceased. Nor was
there another Presidential proclamation
for Thanksgiving day until 1915, when
Madison acted upon the peace OF the
naval war. No President took the matter
up--leaving the designations to Governors
of States exclusively-untilL Lincoln made
August 6, 1863, a Thanksgiving day for
Gettysburg, and made yet another in No
vember. The Nation had summers
Thanksgiving day when President Grant
proclaimed it for July in the National
Centennial year of independence. Since
then Presidents and Governors together
proclaim, and even some ambitious MAYORS
of cities air their rhetoric in imitation.
May l, in anticipation of the coming
universal holiday contribute song verse
to the tune of the "Star-spangIed Ban.
ner'':
All! the Thanksgiving day, when from East and
from West,
From North and from South, come the pilgrim and
guest,
When the gray y-haired New Englander sees round
his board
The old sundered links OF affection restored
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once
more,
nd mill