The age-herald., 1901-02-19
This Day Is shrove Tuesday.

and the Pancake-Tuesday of the old days oI the ancient faith in England.
 With Catholics the world over it is a day of feastng and merriment the last which they may lawfully enjoy until Eas- ter, for the laws of the church are very exacting in the interdction during Lent Of what are commonly called worldly amusements, such as dancing, attendance at theatre, drinking and feasting, and general frivolity. Lent is a time for pen- ance, for fasting and prayer, mortifica- ton ana repentance.
 Dear Mard Gras Memories.
 Tt was my privilege in recent years to participate in several carnival cele- brations in Catholic lands, notably in Rome, Florence and Nice" said a Birm- ingham man who was engaged in dis charging American public duties abroad for a number of years.
 ''The most beautiful carnival of all that I saw was at Nice and the central fig ure of the happy hearted Catholic re- joicing was the generous, liberal and democratic prince who is now King Ed ward VII of England, then the Prince of Wales, or as he was universally and fa- miliarly called in conversation, II. R. H. his royal highness of universal affec- tion. If all men in the world could have seen this illustrious prince as he appeared that day in the streets of Nice their view of him would have materially made for the Parliament of Man, the Federa- tion of the World, which the mighty Seer Tennyson saw by the pilots of the purple twilight!
 '"The prince left his hotel in an open carriage which was so completely decked in flowers, the open-air flowers of that glorious southern cline, that the material and paint of the vehicle were entirely hid from view. He was unattended, just as if he had been an Alderman instead of heir to the proudest throne of earth. No soldiers, no policeman, no guard ex- cept the hearts of the multitude, he started out on his drive with one per sonal friend with him. That friend was known and admired, and loved for his great goodheartedness the world over as Baron Hirsch the Jew, now dead before his time. Six praEcing ponies drew the ioy di Ndilld56i tt llt fuOIIlSuI IIIcy cleared the gateway coming out of the courtyard of the hotel, the admiring and wildly enthusiastic people began raining flowers upon the vehicle and the prince and his friend. Before the carriage had proceeded above two hundred yards it was overfiowing with the floral greet ings of the public. Meanwhile the Prince of Wales wa o,a occasionally throwing flowers and con- fetti, as happy and as thoroughly dem- ocratic as any public school boy in Eng lang or America. Indeed, the prince is himself an old public school boy, having in his youth attended the renowned school founded at Eton by one of his kingly ances stors, a school which all the boys of the English royal family attend, and which Wellington declared won the battle of Waterloo-'Watcrloo was won at Eton,' was his phrase.
 That was a great day in Nice, and no one who witnessed the jubilantly happy Catholic greeting to the Protestant Prince of England is ever likely to for get it, and to every one it was new proof of the light-hearted happiness of Catholics the world overl
 Memories of the carnival in the Corso in Rome, the, street of merriment In the Eternal City, in which that same Eng fish prince was the leading figure in his youth, still cause happiness to the way farer. Confetti alone was used, not the vile paper stuff we know in Birmingham and other American cities as confetti; but the fine, almost impalpable white powder in little paper bags thin that the dropping of one to the pavement was enough to burst it. This confetti in the Corso carnival filled the atmosphere so that it looked as if pure white and dry fog were prevailing; and truly was the merriment boundless. And the unbridled license of the time was never taken ad- vantage of for rudeness or roughness, ill., manners or licentiousness. It was all jol- lity without offense. In Florence-most entrancing of all the worlds cities to out ward seeming-similar conditions pre- vailed; all were merry and happy!