The Aberdeen weekly. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1878-1933, 1919-12-26

the receiving line and helped to dispense the hos
pitaiity of the home. l remember one season
when we had more than 200 callers The custom
was 10 stay few moments only, chat, drink and
eat and then go to the next house One OF the
rooms, however. cleared for dancing and in
the late hours the callers would select partners
and whirl through a waltz. polka schottishe.
or perhaps a of the quadrille. Every house
had band of musicians.
The open house function was q very elaborate
dress affair-the women We'd with one another in
beautiful costuming and the month before New
Years was harvest for the dressmakers
"From .. O'Clock until late ia the night the par
lors were filled with guests. The lower portion of
the house had been previously beautifully deco
rated with flowers and exotics and all who called
were made to feel perfectly at home. In the din
ing room table with all sorts of eatabes
and dainties, with wines and punches. At 2
O'Clock, when the reception opened, the blinds
We're drawn and the gas lighted. During the day
favored callers invited to return at night Tor
a dances"
With the gradual abandoning of New Years
calls in the gradual growth of the eating.
drinking and revelry that before the and pro-
hibition marked New Years eve in the cities.
Here is glimpse of Philadelphia in 1894:
After the reserves and the Third district police
men had taken their positions the enormous crowd
began to swell in size. In front of Independence
hail. filling the street jostling mob that be
came noisier the nearer the hands of the clock
came to the midnight hour. Up Chestnut street
there two black masses that moved vctor
ously toward the statehouse.
'sThe gay and comic shooter (murnmer) d.l
not put in appearance to any considerable extefst
until about IL O'Clock. Then he came from ali d.
rections.
1.-The thousands packed in the roadway sent I'D
an answering cry to the first stroke of the b e
bell and the rattle of pistol Shots despite the pr
lice orders against using weapons. was like the
sound of musketry. The screams of whistles added
to the din and every side through the miles that
the eyes could pierce fireworks went blazing ul
ward"
And here is q glimpse of New York in 1906
"All New York came out to celebrate the birth
of the new year. Nothing like II was ever seea
before for numbers for enthusiasm. From the
hour after dinner until long after midnight the
celebration lasted. 1t consisted of noise. eating
and drinking. with noise by far the predomnatng
element. Men born in New York. who have lived
here all their lives looked the carnival in wide
eyed astonishment-
AT least $4,000 and women packed Broad
way and the side streets near Trinity church from
half past eleven O'Clock until long after midnight
To hear the chimes? Oh To blow horns an.
whistles and spring rattles and yell and thus
drown the very pretty chimes of old Trinity
that welcomed in the New Year. Every table in
every big restaurant taken weeks in advance"
In 1914 the police in most of the large cities
dered .sane' New Years celebrations. In conse-
quence there was marked diminution of the
revelry; in many cities midnight closing and COM
munity celebrations marked the occasion.
Thus the celebration of New Years day in noise
drinking eating and caliing-has grown to be a
climax and become sane" What next?