The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1899-04-15
BILL ARP'S WEEKLY LETTER.
HE EXPLAINS VARIOUS FEAST
DAYS OF THE SEASON.
9NCIENT ORIGIN OF MARDI GRAS
Barlow Man Talks About Ash Wednes.
day, Easter and the Usherins
In Of Lent.

About this time Of the year there
are so many feast days and fast days
and days dedicated to the saints that
u keeps me busy studying the books
go as to be ready to explain them to
the children. Our numerous posterity
have inquiring minds and had rather
u would tell them than to study them
ont for themselves. 1t mortifies my
pride if they ask me historical or alb.
truse questions that / cannot answer,
and SO l try to keep ahead and main.
tain my reputation for wisdom as did
Goldsmith's schoolmaster whose pu.
pills wondered chow one small head
could carry all it knew"
Now they want to know about ST.
Valentine and st. Patrick and mardi
gras and Ash Wednesday, and so had
toexplain how il was that st. Valen.
tines day and Shrove Tuesday, OF
mardi gras day, came together this
year, and how the first was fixed, but
the other was movable because Easter
was. And had to tell themhow st. Val.
entine was Christian martyr who
was beheaded in the third century,
and he was such good, kind, loving
man that he was afterwards canonized
and enrolled among the saints and q
day set apart to his memory. 1t was
believed in the olden time that the
birds mated on that day, and so it was
the custom for young people to choose
their sweethearts and send loving let.
tiers to each other. They don't do that
now to any alarming extent, but send
the most ridiculous and hateful pic
lures and hurt feelings instead of max
ing love, and I know that the good
saint is grieved and mortified about it.
Mardi gras day is near at hand and
the railroads have advertised cheap.
schedules to New Orleans, for that is
the only city in the United States
where the French and Italians and
creoles are numerous enough and fool.
ish enough to perpetuate this idiotie
carnival. Mardi means Mars, the god OF
war, and gras means fat. In French it lie
called boeuf gras or fat OK. In En-
glish it means fat Tuesday. In the
Roman Catholic calendar it is called
Shrove Tuesday These names of fat
Mars, fat OK and fat Tuesday all came
from a custom of the butchers in Ven.
ice, who on the day before Lent Sc.
lected the finest, largest and latest or
they could find and dressed him up in
fancy costume and bed2cked him
with flowers and set little boy on his
back and led him through the streets
with banners waving and drums beat.
ing and children shouting and follow
ing along just like our boys and ne
groes follow the band wagon of circus
nowadays.
Some say that the butchers started
this parade to lot their customers know
they woulden, have any more meat for
forty days and SO they had better eat
a good deal that day and that the fat
OK would be slaughtered at noon for
banquet that night. From this igno-
BILE beginning the annual celeb, alton
of Shrove Tuesday grew and grew into
great frolic by day and revelry by
night, and as the display was more
magnificent in Venice than in any
other city it was called the carnival OF
Venice.
Now, children, you aus. know that
the word carnival is Latin word and
means farewell to fesh," for the
next day was the beginning of Lent,
aud no flesh was to be eaten for forty
days. The first day of Lent was call
ed Ash Wednesday because the priests
humbled the people by throwing
ashes on their foreheads. The ashes
are mixed with something that makes
them stick for a while. 1t is an ole
ceremony that came down from tbs
Jews. The day before Lent is calico
Shrove Tuesday because on that day
the church people gathered in the
churches and professed penitence and
were shriven or shrove or absolved
from their sins by the priests. This
was done early in the morning ano
they felt 80 good aud so secure of sol
walton that they danced and prance6
and Toasted and frolicked with great
hilarity and many OF them joined in
the mardi gras or carnival aud cut nj
scandalous. Well, maybe if we Prot
estants believed that our preachers
could absolve us from sin and make
our salvation certain we would prance
around, too, and our preachers would
be b tier paid than they are now.
Rut this carnival or mardi gras has
dsgenerated into the extreme OF dissi-
patton and Incorporate hilarity, having
neither penitence nor absolution in it
The pageant in the streets is YER.
beautiful one, and costs lots Of money
Magnificent chariots. drawn by fins
horses, dressed with star-spanglet
harness, with drivers dressed like the
gods and carrying beautiful women
arraved like the goddesses, and iittlt
cupids waving flags and banners, while
delicious music filed the air, aud gor
Icons emblems streamed from ever
window. All, the charm Of It, the
beauty Of i'll 1t makes one feel - did
the old woman who for the first time
went 70 circus, and when the grand
cavalcsde of spangled horses and
riders came marching IA, whispered *
tha old man, JOINT ~, John
hits more ike the kinsdom of haaven
a., anything I ever expected e ses
81 soxtk /" And that = nboqe - nee1