The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1915-02-02
IS KING WINTERS
BACK BROKEN?

Although Candlemas Day, the sec
ond of February, has lost much Of its
old significance as a religious FESTIVAL,
and is now far from generally obserV-
ed even in the Catholic countries Oh
Europe, the ancient weather super
stitions connected with it are still
very much alive. To a, majority OF
the inhabitants of North America the
once honored festival Of the Purthca-
ton of the Virgin has become merely
''Groundhog Day" On this day the
grounding, according to time-honor-
ed custom, energies from his hole to
inspect the state of the weather. II
the sun shines at any time during the
day with such brightness that Brer
Grounding can see his shadow, he
will know that six weeks Of winter
still remain, and will resume his in
terrupted s1umber.
| The belief that Candlemas Day in
fIuences the duration of winter is as
old as the festival itself. It is ex-
pressed in the old Scottish rhyme:
If Condolences Day be dry and
The half o winters to come and
MAR;
If candlemass Day be wet and foul,
The half o. winters game at Yule.
In these days OF meteorological
! records and scientific observations,
the grounding has been proved a liar
so often that he is wholly discredited
/ And with the old superstdtutfon 1t
would seem that winter itself is pass
ling. The severest of modern winters
jcannot compare with the ssold-fash-
Toned vvinters's that our grandfathers
1 talk about, and they were mild in
lcompared with the winters Of ancient
times. King Winters back has been
! broken, it would seem, and even in
L sta
provinces the raging blizzard has be-
come comparatively tame.
Looking over the records of the
/ hard winters of the past, we find
that the Black sea was frozen over
/ for twenty days in 402; that the seas
at Constantinop1e were frozen hun-
dred miles from shore in 764; that
/ the Adriatic was frozen over in $50;
/ that the Thames was frozen for four
teen weeks in 1O63;a that travellers
/ passed over the Baltic on the ice for
six weeks in, 1923; and that it was
frozen again in 1902 and 1850, when
| horse passengers crossed from Dem
mark to Sweden; that wine was sold
in frozen chunks in Flanders in 1914;
/ that the sea at Venice was frozen in
lin 1922; that Charles x. of Sweden
crossed with his whole army over the
lice from Holstein to Denmark; that
forest trees were split by the frost
In England IN 1854 ana the ice Oh
the Thames was so thick that shops
were built on it; that Austria was
almost submerged by snow in 1881
/ when the wolves became SO famished
i that they entered Vienna and at
tackled people and animals; that an
ice festival lasting nine weeks was
held on the Thames at London in
/ 174O; that New York harbor was
frozen over, and teams passed from
the city to Staten Island, in 1880; thai
New York bay was again frozen IL
1921, and that early explorers in the
Dakotas, Manitoba and the northwest
declared that the winters were SO Sc
we're and the Geld SO terrible that only
the sturdiest of men could survive
! and that the country was absolutely
uninhabitable for ordinary white
folks.
The hard winter of the twentieth
century would doubtless have beer
considered except onally mild and
benign by our ancestors. If civiiiza-
ton reduces the physical stamina and
endurance of humans, it also seem:
to have the effect of tempering the
u rjegOrS of winter