The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1900-12-21

| Rings on her fingers and bells on her toss;
| She shall give music wherever she goes.
am to consider engagement and
wedding rings that-to paraphrase
Tenny son-''ring out the old; ring in
! the new" even if sometimes they do
not "ring out the false" or ''ring in the
| true
Charles Edwards-once great law
yer of this city, and the father Of
i, Pierrepont Edwards, who during twen-
ty years served Her Brittanic Majesty
as vice-consul at this port-once en-
, deavored in a volume to trace the ori-
gin of rings in adornment, but, as he
once told me, "the search carried him
so far into antiquity that he was like
Moses near to the promised land, but
unable to really enter it IN order to
cap the climax of his hunt
We, however, need go no farther
back for such search than to the
| forty-second verse OF the torty-tirst
| chapter of Genesis, which begins:
And Pharaoh took off his ring from
his hand and put it upon Joseph s
hand" And this was previous to the
ride of Thcseus on the dolphin's back
to obtain the ring that Minos threw
into the ocean. Even previous to the
time when Jupiter, to carry out his
oath to everlastingly chain Prometheus
that very original "fire-bug ITO
the frosty Caucasus" a prey to vul-
lures and unblessed with liver pills,
presented Prometheus in setting him
free ring in which was set piece Of
the stone of his rock. Thus, on Mr..
P.'s promise never to part with that
ring and setting, did truthful Jupiter
keep his Olympian word.
All Of which is evidence that from
the very earliest age ring possessed
the nature of a pledge. OF such a
pledge as General Perdicas-and there
is one of that name still on military
duty in modern Greece-gave to Alex
| ander the Great when the latter, on
diving from his famous debauch, sur
rendered his imperial ring on a promise
from his gallant subject that he should
have burial in the Temple of Ammon.
OF such pledge savored also the luck
less ring that by treachery never
reached Queen Elizabeth at the dying
hours of the hapless Essex. We know
, that always finger ring was made to
act as the priestess-so to speak-who
sacrificed in the temples of fidelity.
Its own shape, without a visible end,
seems to prefgure a fidelity with a
mysterious beginning that lapses into
an emblem of eternity.
1t is tradition that when the Sa-
bines abducted and married Roman
maidens on a memorable occasiop-a
deed recently initiated by the Koords
in abducting Armenian maidens to be-
come wives in their lonesome steppes
then those Sabines soothed the alb
ductees by giving them pledges of
honor in gifts of iron finger rings. In
| very early times statues have existed
since unburied-with scmblanees of
marbled rings on the cold impassive
fingers. And long before the era Of
pawnbrokers Greeks, Romans and bar
barians alike regarded the parting with
a gift ring for price as the sincerest
evidence of poverty-as it yet is.
| Professional and official duties once
brought me into much intercourse with
pawnbrokers, reminding me of Ham
let's exclamation: "Oh, my prophetic
soul, my uncle Which impes me to
observe here that although novelists
and playwrights have managed by
using exceptions in place of rules to
bring pawnbrokers-whose patron
saint is Nicholas-into disrepute as a
class, my own experience is of the re-
verse. | have found as much senti-
ment among them as have discovered
among lawyers: and more philanthropy;
and more worthy dealing among pawn
brokers than among some magnates Of
Wall streets.
| Religion and Love, Sentiment and
Compliment have been from the earliest
times the inspirers of finger rings; even
from the early period when they were
fabricated in iron or bronze rather than
in gold or silver with gems.
| This language of rings and gems
will enter into phrases when rings be-
come gifts on Christmas day. There
Was time when a diamond signified
Genius, that best gem of Intellect: but
now that some American women wear
the diamond in the street and sport it
in ear rings in the horse car and in the
omnibus instead of reserving it for
evening dress, as is the etiquette
abroad; or, now that butchers and
bakers and candlcstick makers wear
diamond rings on gloveless hands and
prove the prismatic grandeur of these
: discordant ornaments when pulling
mustachcs or smoothing scalp-locks-
!, the diamond is rather, in it's language
significant of vanity or self conceit than
of Genius.
The sapphire however continues tc
be the emblem of Truth, and it sug
} gests, as ever, religious innocence from