Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1908-08-14
DAYS OF DISASTER
TERM "BLAck" APPLIED TO VA
Rlous PERIODS OF HISTORY.
Chiefly Understood In This Country In
Its Application to the Financial
Panic of Friday, September "a,
1869, In Wall Street.

The designation of Black Friday
is popularly supposed to be restricted
to certain day in the financial his.
tory of New York, but in point of fact
II has been applied to a number Of
days at various times in history. AS
used in the records of stock specula.
tion in Wall street, it is applied to
two days. The first was Friday, Sep.
tember "a, 1869, when panic was
caused in the money market by the
joint efforts of Col James Fisk and
Jay Gould to corner the gold mar
ket, the price of gold going up to
1913 1-3, and large number of financial
concerns undergoing heavy stress
The name Black Friday is also ap
piled to September 10, 1873, when the
great financial crash in the stock ex.
change preceding the panic of that
year occurred.
In the financial history of England
May II, 1866, is designated as Black
Friday, as on that day began a dis
astrous financial panic, which was
brought about by the failure of the
firm of Overend, Gurney & Co., in
London, who were afterward tried and
acquitted of conspiracy to defraud.
In ecclesiastical history the Roman
or Western church has frequently des.
ignated Good Friday as Black Friday,
as on that day all clerical vestments
and altar draperies are strictly of
black. The term black-letter days is
applied to minor holidays and saints
days whose names appear on calen.
dars in black letters instead of red
letters, as do the high days and holy
days. In the English calendar cer-
tain black-letter days have been re-
tanned because they mark civil dates
of Importance, such as Hilary term
and Martinmas summer, or because
they commemorate some public bene-
factor.
The name Black Monday is given in
English history to Easter Monday,
April IA, 1860. when Edward Ill
Paris, and the weather was so stormy
and bitter cold that many men died as
they sat on their horses. The term
was afterward extended to include all
Easter Mondays, and is so used by
Shakespeare in "The Merchant of
Venice" in the line "Then it was not
for nothing that my nose fell a-bleed-
ing on Black Monday last" Dickens
refers to the schoolboy custom of re-
garding the day for returning to
school after the long vacation as Black
Monday, and an article in Household
Words mentions "the due observance
of the ancient institution of Black
Monday" the eve of which was kept
on the Saturday night, when the
school box was packed. In Irish his
tory the term Black Monday was ap.
piled to the day when number of
English were slain in village near
Dublin in 1903.
Australia has a Black Thursday in
its history, the name being given in
the colony of Victoria to Thursday,
February 6, 1851, when the most ter
rible bush fire ever known in the his |
tory of the colony ragged over an I'M |
extent of territory and the heat |
was felt far out at sea, and birds over |
come by it fell on the decks of coast |
ing vessels. The loss caused by the |
was exceedingly great.
Black Saturday was the name given |
In Scotland to August 4, 1921, when
the parliament, sitting in Edinburgh, |
ratified certain articles introducing
Church of England practices in the |
churches of Scotland which were op-
posed to the religious convictions OF
the Scotch Presbyterians The violent
thunder storm which occurred at the
time, with much lightning and great
was held to be a manifest |
token of the displeasure of heaven.
So far as the records show, no other
day of the week has had the adjective
black attached to 1t. Red-letter days
are any lucky, fortunate or auspicious
lays, and are so called because In the
older liturgical works the greater holy
lays are designated by red letters.
Dickens makes one of his characters
N BLEAK House" say: 1T is the old
girls birthday. and that is the great
sst holiday and reddest letter day In
Mr. Bagnet's calendar" Charles
Lamb, in his oxford In the Vacation"
writes: THE red-letter days now be-
come, to all intents and purposes,
iead-letter days"