, 1900-01-18
NEW A DAY.

January l was made the beginning
Of the legal year in England in 1852.
Sweden did not adopt January l as
New Years day until the year 1853.
The legislative union of Great Brit
ain and Ireland ooh place on January
l, 1901.
January j was made New Years Day
in France by royal edict in the year
1864.
On New Years Day in ancient Egypt
there were professions in every tenn
pie.
The month of January is said to have
been named by Numa Pompillius in
672 B. C.
The Emancipation Proclamation of
Abraham Lincoln was issued on Janu-
airy l. 1868.
The New Year in Sparta was cele-
brated by the conservation of youths to
military service.
The American Indians had a sort OF
New Year festival, celebrated with
feasting and dancing.
In Siberia the state prisoners OF the
Car are allowed a rest and holiday on
New Years Day.
In the sixteenth century the COM
mon New Years gift of a tenant to his
landlord was a fat capon.
The wassail ale of merry old Eng
land was made of ale, nutmeg, sugar,
toast and roasted apples.
The present system of beginning the
new year with January l was adopted
in Scotland A. D. 1900.
In Athens a new statute, either to a
god or a hero, was erected and conse-
Grated on the first day of every veal.
On January l, 15l5, Louis XII, of
France, died; on the same day died
Helvetius, in 1772; Selvic Pellico, 1854.
In Silesia a peculiar kind of wine
made from grapes and seasoned with
honey and spices is used on New Years
Day.
In the south of France it is custo-
mary for families of means to give
their servants new suits on New Years
Day.
The celebrated march of General
Monk to London for the purpose Of
seating Charles II. on the throne OF
England began January l, 1860.
In Norway there is a superstition
that the kind of fish caught on New
Years Day indicates the character OF
the fishing during the year.
The custom of watching out the old
year and waiting for the new to begin
prevails in many countries, if not in
most of the civilized world.
S%uetonius and Tacitus allude to the
custom common in their time among
the Romans of sending and receiving
presents on New Years Day.
A special feature of New Years Day
in ancient Babylon was the procession
in honor of Baal. The king himself
marched in this procession.
The first day of January was made
the beginning of the new year in Hol-
ihiiN ~ ioI'Stall ulSlllNlS VI btI-
many and Russia in the year 100.
In Coventry, England, God cakes are
made for New Years Day. They are
triangular in shape, made of paste, in
closing a portion of mince meat.
In Wales there is a superstition hat
money should not be paid out on New
Years Day, for, If it is, the prayer will
have bad financial luck all through the
year.
Pia2zi, the Sicilian astronomer, dis
covered the planetoids on January 1,
1901. BY some authorities this discov-
cry was claimed as one of the most re-
markable and significant of modern
times.
On the first day of January were born
Baron Trenck, in ITO: Edmund Burke,
1898; Burger, the German poet, in 174S:
Maria Edgeworth, the famous writer
Of romances. in 1867.
Charles Lamb, the gentle essayist
invariably watched for the beginning
of the new year, and took an almost
ShliuiSH uellSHI III tHe ringing OF the
bells which announced that it had
come.
In English the first day of the New
Year is celebrated by a particularly
drink. 1t is spiced ale, facetiously
known as lambs WOOL though how
it acquired such n designation not even
the philologists are able to guess.
Farm laborers in England until re-
cent times carried around empty punch
bowls on New Years Day to the houses
of the gentry and nobility, as a hint
that they would like the wherewithal
to fill them. Gratuities of money were
expected and generally given.
In 1913, after introduction of metal
pins as an article of feminine use, they
became popular as New Year presents.
They were very expensive, and for a
gentleman to make his lady friends a
present of four or five pins was consid-
cred a very happy thought.
In the old missals the month of jan
uary was pi%ctorially represented by a
white-haired man clad in furs, bent
with the cold and blowing on his fin
gers to warm them. He is standing
almost knee-deep in the snow, and a
billet of wood and sometimes an AK are
by his side.
Charles III. was crowned at Scone, In