The Republican journal., 1899-01-19


am not afraid to speak a good word for your
Favorite Prescription and Pleasant Pellets
Over year ago suffered terribly for nearly four
weeks With prolapsus and weakness. After us.
ing bottle Of Favorie Prescription and
one of Pellets, was wei, woman have
taken medicine since and have had synp-
toms of my former troube-"-Mrs E. A. Bender,
Gseene, Coshocton Co, Ohio.
articles OF furniture, brought from Spain
by the titled ancestors hundred years
ago, incline one to the sin of covetousness
as nothing modern could do. Like most
homes of the better class in Cuba it con-
tains private chapel over whose richly
oanopied altar hangs life sized, distress
ing figure of the dying Christ upon the
Cross At his feet stands gorgeously
dressed image of the Virgin Mother and
meek, complaisaut San Jose, amid splen-
did altar service of silver and gold, fine
old paintings, and hundred tall candles
whose light is never permitted to go out
1t is matter of pous duty, as we'll as
pleasure, with these dear people to keep
the tapers continually burning from year
to year, aud to deck the Virgin in their
own choicest treasures of lace and ie wells
for every fiesta. On Christmas Eve her
silken robes We're literally weighted with
diamonds, pearls, rubies, opals, in all
manner OF settings, sewn on indiscrmin-
ately, while the diamond tiara of the an
cestral Marquesa crowned her golden wig,
IA dozen bracelets hung from each wooden
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encircled her waist
The ancient Christmas ceremony called
Los Posadas, is still practiced in many
homes, as in old Spain and all her former
the rich grandees upon the great estates,
whose isolated communities eagerly well
come any advertisement to mitigate their
loneliness. A curious mixture of supersti-
ton, fun and religion are the Posadas, which
seem to an outsider as Intended for the
amusement of children rather than a rite of
religious significance Yet young and old,
aristocrats and servants, saints and sin
ners, take solemn part in it. The cere-
mony is intended to typlfy the time when
Caesar Augustus issued a decree that ''all
the world shall be taxed - and Mary and
Joseph, having come out of Galliee to
Judea to be inscribed for the taxation,
found Bethlehem SO full of people, who
had arrived On the same errand, that for
nine days they wandered about without
gaining admittance to any house or inn,
n,
manager, where Christ was born. The
word posada means inn, and the rite rep
resents the wanderings of the Holy Fam
lily. At San Antonio, on Christmas Eve,
dinner was concluded two hours earlier
than usual, in order to give ample time to
the ceremony for which the family had
spent weeks in careful and expensive
preparation; and by O clock the servants
had cleared the great dining hall, where
the performance began and ended All
the household, including guests, servants,
farm hands and numerous beggars within
the gates, were assembled, formed in pro-
cession two by two, and lighted candle
put into the hand of each. All the walls
and corridors had previously been deco
rated with lamps and evergreens; and led
by the family priest and two or three
padres from town, we marched all over
the house, singing litanies at the top of
our voices, with individual variation in
} Latin, Spanish, Indian and Yankee. At
last, after an hour of marching and sing
| IL
door-when whiz! bang! went lot of
fire. works, suddenly sent flying over our
heads by invisible hands, supposed to
represent the descent of the angels. At
the same moment a bevy of little girls
came dancing in. They wore abbreviated
costumes of silver spangled tulle, white
satin shoes, and white ostrich plumes
fastened to their shoulders in lieu of
wings. Oddly enough, these little crea-
lures had come to superintepd the birth
of the Savior-celestial mid wives so to
speak. Following them appeared group
of ladies dressed to personate the shep-
perds who watched their focks by night
on the plains of Bethlehem-each with
crook in hand and tiger-skin floor rug
over one shoulder. At this point voices
struck up a Spanish uet,-Mary and
Joseph begging admttance at a posada,
declaring that the night was dark, the
wind blew cold and Mary was i'll and they
had nowhere to lay their heads. Behind
| the closed doors male voices responded,
refusing admittance. Again and again
the tenors without entreated and the
bassos within denied-until at last the
angels announced in piping chorus that
} she who craved shelter from the storm
, was the Queen of Heaven! At that name
the doors flew wide open and the Holy
Family entered, followed by the procession
shouting triumphant hozannas.
The scenes within, called the nacimien-