Newport weekly independent., 1903-02-20

ue ulu ln!lce refuse. u was the place for the multitude in those days.
 The relation of the Lupcrcal to St. Valentines day is very simple. It was the church which set aside the 14th day of February in memory of the Saints Valentine; but the custom of freaky celebrations existed long be- fore the church existed. The 14th day ot February was the day set apart by the heather of very ancient Rome for the street acrobatic performances, the carnivals, tumbling, pantomimes; sort of Mardi Gras, such as is now a-days celebrated in New Orleans. That was the Lupercalia, and it exist ed probably thousand years before the coming of the eThe-Anthropos, the founder of the church; the church which set aside St. Valentines day. churchly. The ustom' of it's cele bra tion is heathen.''
 That tells the whole story. One of the well known ceremonies of the LuPercalia was the placing of the names of young girls in box, on slips Of paper. After they were thoroughly shaken together the slips were drawn out by the young men present, and the girls whose names were drawn were the partners of the young men Tor the occasion. The early priests of Christian church stopped this prac- t1ce, and required the substitution of the names of apostles and saints; and the young men who drew the slips were expected to simulate the lives of the saints whose names were drawn.
 We cannot follow St. Valentine's day into other countries, but history shows us that in England, about the tenth century, the people revived the heathen custom of placing the names of girls in the box. This method of getting the girls and young men to- gether again resulted in a custom of expecting marriages to follow the choosing of partners; and thus it happened in England that St. Valen- tine gradually began to be regarded as the patron saint of lovers; and this error spread to our country.
 Another thing from heathen Rome. The Lupercalia was in honor of Feb ruarta-Juno, and the month of Feb- ruary was called by heather priests the lovers month. This idea spread to other countries. And, when the English custom of drawing lovers for weddings on St. Valentines day be. came known in other countries, they more natural, because the choosing of human mates in that month would seem to the people of early days as appropriate as the choosing of mates by the birds, fact long we'll known, especially in Italy and contiguous countries. It became the lovers month, and the mating month; and the greatest church day of that month being St. Valentines day, the whole world entered into the error of making St. Valentine the patron saint of all the lovers in the world. Young men used to wear the slips bearing the names of their chosen partners on their sleeves, sometimes for weeks at time. The sending of cards Gan enlargement of drawing slips) began in the eigteenth century. The making of comic valentines is one of the horrors of American gen jus, worse even than the yellow jour nal. Another Americanism origin ated in the fertile brain of some street urchin; probably a newsboy whose capacity for cussedness is un- limited the ringing of door bells and then running away before t.ey are answered.
 And all of this expense and funny business in honor of saints who nev. CT had anything to do with lovers, mating, marrying nor giving in mar riage. How this world does delight in being fooled or in fooling itself SMITH D hRY