Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1909-02-28
ORIGIN OF
 MARDI GRAS
Was 1t in MObile-.Or Has New or. leans Been Celebrating tho Long, est-Interestlng Contro,ersary.

mated the Mardi Gras carnival has commenced again, writes New Or leans correspondent of the Chicago Fest.
 The amusing thi'1g about it is that the pundits who have been engaged all along In settling" the question have all along missed the primer truth, which is that the first Shrove Tuesday carnival on American soil was cele- brated neither at Mobile nor at New Orleans.
 Now, of course, MarH Gras carnival is inseparably part of the life of have seen it, memory of blended beauty color, mirth and music, and even to those who have only heard of it q mirage as gorgeously nebulous. yet as thrst-proyoking as the palace of the Sultan Seleymin, seen across the blistering sands of Sahara'a Khamsin winds. But the date of it's foundation of both Mobile and New Orleans; the man who made it made them, too.
 The man was no less a parsonage than Jean Baptiste le MOyne, Sieur de Bienville, early governor of La Louisiana. He commanded the al- vance longboat of the two with which his brother, Pierre d'Iberville, dis covered the mouth of the Mississippi.
 Today, when the merry crowds whirl through the joyous revelry ol Mardi Gras, they are perpetuatins holiday first celebrated on Shrove Tuesday, 1899. marking back to cer- tain cold sunrise when Bienville's bow~sWivel boomed out it's salute to the uninhabited shores below what is now New Orleans. A muddy little creek there emptied into the great muddy river.
 Recalling what day it was, the youth hailed the Jesuit priest on his brothers boat, matine were intoned, the Te Deum was chanted, the crews shouted and bent to their oars, still singing Bienville named the little creek Mardi Gras, in honor of the day The swivel gun again rang out in salut d'adieu," and the first carnival had been celebrated. Some enthusiasts, however, claim that the carnival dates back to Nine yeh and Egyptian pyraminds. It were more correct, and logical to trace descent from Greeks and Romans- the Olympic games, tho Lupercalia and Saturnalla, and especially the 'triumphs" to homing visitors. But the closer and more assured pro- genitor was the progress of the ''Boeuf Gras" through the streets of Paris on Shrove Tuesday.
 Neither is carnival the farewell to meat" from "carne" and vale" as commonly accepted It comes from "carne" and the verb ''levare,' to tighten, and means a solace to care. The Romans had their 'Carveleva- . | church invented Shrove Tuesday. The festival thereon is merely the name for the third day of the week in the French calendar; the alden dunn "gras', meaning father gross. The day precedes those lenten forty ot the Roman and Episcopal churches tNf Gch in
 Each celebration of Mardi Gras, in both the creole cities, were crude and cheap affairs ill comparison with the splendors of today. Neither town then dreamed of other objects or re- suit than the indulgence of a love of pleasure in joy in prettiness. Grad ully, emulation improved the parades. Then they grew famous and became magnets to attract Sreator visiting yearly.
 Last the hand of commercialisn touched the unique festival. Today, that period which this year is con- pr s21 between February IS and 23 is not only the most potent magnet 10 draw crowds that the country knows, but it is also as strictly business as a great exposition asking an appro- priation from congress.
 The cost of all these carnivals has been estimated variously and absurd ly. It is all mere guesswork, Of course, and the figures range from s50,000 in single year to ten times that sum. It is probable that New Orleans alone spends three times the first figure, as a yearly aveage, and St, Louis is known to have paid for one Yelled Prophet procession and the accompanying street illumination s125,o00.
 In the seventy-eight-year life of the mystic pa9eantry New Orleans an,l