The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-12-28
CHILDERNAS LONG
 CONSIDERED UNLUCKI-
 EST DAY OF THE YEAR

This is the unluckiest day of the year, according to a superstition held for centuries by Englishmen, and not yet quite extinct in some rural dis tricts of Great Britain The explana- ton of this belief is to be found in the fact that the twenty eighth Of December is Holy Innocents' Day, or, as it is called in England, Childermas, which cornmem crates the slaughter of the male children of Bethlehem by order of King Herod. The pious be- lief as to the unfortunate nature or the day still persists in some remote parts of Cornwall, and probably not a few Cornishmen in the British army although among the bravest of the brave-wilI be afflicted with grave
 misg1vings today.
 Childermas is one of the Roman Catholic anniversaries which were re- tained in the ritual of the Anglican church at the ReforTnation. Until comparatively recent times the belief in the unlucky character of the day was almost general in England, and
 many Americans can recall the time when the fear of untoward events on
 this day was entertained by their grandmothers. In those days nobody would begin any work on Childermas, and majority of laboring men would if at all hazardous. Housewives
 would not wash clothes or scrub on
 that day. holding that exposure to
 cool air or water on Chi1dernas was certain to .sgiye them their death of colds"
 Nor was the acceptance of the in suspicious nature of EtF1e day corn
 memorating Herod's atrocity confined to the poor and ignorant. The nobili- ty, even the royalty, shared this fear It is related that the ministers of Ed ward w, who apparently were lack n rps T n
 that monareh's coronation on the twenty eighth of December. The king, when so informed, became highly indignant, and immediately or dered the day changed to the twenty ninth, accusing his courtiers of seek ing to bring about his ruin and dis aster to his reign.
 Twentieth century children are to lbe congratulated that another old
 custom connected with Chi1dermas
 has passed into oblivion. It was long the practice, in all parts of Europe,
 to awaken the youngsters on Childer- | mas morning by administering the lash to the spot where it would do the
 most good. The severity of the pun | ishment depended upon the mercy or absence of it of the father, who was 1 supposed to administer the f1ogging Tn the seventeenth century a man was l tried in England for beating one of
 his children so severely on ChiIdermas ! that the youngster succumbed to the 1 Injuries. The cruel father was sen-
 fenced to receive azflogging-and that too, in a day when many crimes were thought to merit the death penalty. In France this custom degenerated i! into indescribable orgies, which are duly set forth in such works as the
 "HeptaIneron.'' In England the prac- tice of whipping the youngsters, that the memorie of Herod's murder of the
 Tnnocents might stick the closer, and
 in 8 moderate proportion to act over
 the crueltie again in kinde,'' gradual | ly declined, and where it is still ob-
 served it has become 8 mere frolic, in which the parents take no part. It is the ambition of each youngster of a family of children to be the first
 awake on Childermas, as that Is sup posed to give him the right to awaken l the sss1eepy-heads' by a sound pad ding The writer can recall when
 this practice was followed on this side l of the Atlantic-and perhaps it is yet.