ee ~ Theodore N.Va = Bellefonte, Pa., April 6, 1928. EE ——————————————————— EASTER SUNDAY NEW YEAR'S DAY. Easter Sunday was formerly equiv- alent to New Year’s day; though not the first gay of the year it was the day on which the opening of the year was celebrated. Historically the Christian Easter is simply a continu- ation of the Jewish Passover, which was celebrated on the 14th day of the first month of the Jewish year—that is, on the day of the first full moon next following the day of the equi- nox. It has been questioned whether any special observance of this day was practiced or enjoined by the apos- tles and the early Church fathers; yet the words of St. Paul in I Cor. 5:7-8 seem to sanction if they do not recommend an observance of some sort and foreshadow the thought which came finally to underlie it: “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincer- ity and truth.” According to the Jew- ish tradition, the Passover commemo- rated the passing of the angel of death over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, the doorposts and lintels of which had been sprinkled with the blood of the paschal lamb. The Chris- tians, in adopting the festival, gave it a new significance. For them the Sav- jor became the true Paschal Lamb, and the new festival commemorated | His resurrection on the third day fol- lowing the Crucifixion. The proper day for celebrating | Easter was one of the questions which | the Council of Nice was called upon | to decide. By the eastern Christians | it was at that time celebrated on the same day as the Jewish Passover, without regard to the day of the | week on which it might fall. Among | the western Christians, who held that | the crucifixion occurred on a Friday and the resurrection on a Sunday, there had arisen a custom of celebrat- ing Easter on the first Sunday fol- lowing the 14th of the first month, and to this custom was given the of- ficial sanction of the council. Fur- thermore, the rule then established for fixing upon the proper Sunday | was designed partly to prevent the | possibility of Easter ever falling on | the same day as the Passover, but | the rule has failed on several occa- | sions to prevent this coincidence, and | at rare intervals the two festivals | came together. | i | The old Roman year, like the Jew- | ish year, begain in March, when the sun entered the constellation Aries. ! When the calendar was reformed un- der Julius Ceasar, the year was made to begin on the first day of January. | After the adoption of Christianity in | Europe, the date of the beginning of ! the year was changed to March in most countries, so that Easter became recognized as a New Year's day. ‘The reform of the calendar by Pope Greg- ory, in 1582, again changed the day on which the year began, although in England it continued to begin on the 95th of March until the adoption of | the “new style” there in 1742. ! Christianity found. Spring festivals | already in vogue in heathen Europe, | and to these oldtime festivals many : of the customs and superstitious rites still connected with Easter are clear- ly traceable. The name Easter, given to the day by the Teutonic nations— the Roman nations have retained the old Hebrew name, pascha, under mod- | ified forms, as the Jour de Paques, of the French—is derived by Bede from Oster or Ostara, the name of an old Anglo-Saxon goddess, in whose honor a spring festival was celebrated. Grimm was unable to find any men- tion of a deity of this name among the ancient Germans, but from the fact that the month of April still bears the name Ostermonat, he did not doubt that such a goddess, prob- ably “the divinity of the radiant dawn,” had been known among them. The old Oster festival was clearly of a solar character, a celebration in honor of the birth or the rejuvenation of the sun of the new year. This is made. evident, aside: from the known character of similar festivals in oth- er parts of the world, by many of the observances which is bequeathed to Kaster. Thus, it was formerly a custom all through the provinces of Germany, on the night of Easter Sun- day or the third night following, to kindle bonfires on all heights, afford- ing a magnificent spectacle, when these fires were to be seen here and there over miles of country. This custom had become simply a mode of merrymaking, but it is held with plausibility that originally the bonfire . was symbolical of the new fire that. was to warm the earth and quicken it into renewed life after the cold em- | brace -of winter. : Another indication of the ancient | solar character of this festival is an | old popular belief, said to survive | still in Bradenburg and Saxony, that ! the sun at the moment of rising on | the morning of Easter gives three | joyous leaps, that he dances with | youthful joy. This curious belief was: not confined to Germany. In the mid- | dle districts of Ireland, according to | Brand, it was customary, after spend- | ing Easter eve in merrymaking and | carousing—watching the pot boil, the | contents of which were to break the long Lenten fast, yet must not be touched before the crowing of the cock—for the whole company of rev- elers to go out just at daybreak to see the rising sun take his three East- er leaps. Sir Thomas Browne, writing of popular errors, mentions thus quaintly the existence of this belief in England; “We shall not, I hope, disparage the resurrection of our Re- deemer, if we say that the sun doth not dance on Easter day; and though I would -willingly assent unto any sympathetic exultation, yet we can- not conceive therein more than a trop- ical expression.” Perhaps there is no more striking illustration than this of the power of an inherited belief to live on in spite of the testimony of all experiences against it. In some for Acts of The Shenandoah Central Office grou right the Misses O’Brien, Kathryn Dalton and Rowland; lower, Miss Leonora McCann il Bronze Medals Awarded Bravery in Public Service Four Individuals and a Central Office Group of The Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania so Honored in 1927 John P. Croft Teeley, Butler, Dugan and Anna Dalton Announcement has just been made of the award of the Theodore N. Vail bronze medals in Pennsyl- vania for the year 1927. These awards are made annually for “conspicuous acts of public ser- vice” which result in the saving of a human life or the continuation of a public service in times of stress. The fund from which the awards are made was created in memory of the late Theodore N. Vail, for many years President of the Bell System. The Pennsylvania Bell Tele- phone recipients of the medals are Froenk Mifflin Baiderston, Repair- man, Philadelphia: Leon Bernnard Miller, Combination Man, Shenan- doah; John Paul Croft, Wire Chief, Lancaster, and the traffic force at Shenandoah. In addition, Miss Leonora McCann, Night Op- erator for the South Penn Tele- phone Company at Greensboro, was cited for her activities on the occasion of a very serious fire that had broken out about 500 yards from the exchange and threatened the entire town. She telephoned for assistance from six adjacent towns and from Uniontown. The latter fire department made a rec- ord run to Greensboro and Miss McCann, although working in the dark, for the electrical power was interrupted, kept in touch with the situation by relays of messengers and continued p. Upper left to Whalen, Murphy, Armstrong, Misses Swoyer, Frank M. Balderston switchboard until she was relieved the next morning. Mr. Balderston’s citation was for his aid at a time when a passing freight train struck two small boys. One boy had a hand crushed off at the wrist and Mr. Balderston went to his assistance, controlled the bleeding and directed the ap- plication of a tourniquet. When the boy was lifted it was found that the other arm was terribly in- jured, the flesh being torn from the bone above the elbow. Mr. Bal- derston held the bleeding artery during the. ride te. the hospital. while another was looking after the second boy who had received a fractured skull. Leon Miller and the Shenandoah Central Office force were both cited | for coolness and courage at the time of a serious fire in an adjoin- ing building. which spread to the exchange, . Mr. Miller discovered the smoke and: blaze in the central office, directed bne of his men tol procure an extinguisher and noti- fied the Chief Operator. He de- vised an emergency exit for the operators, removed the records and returned to fight the fire until smoke compelled him to leave. The period of tension was from 4.50 P. M. until 6.15 P. M. Under the leadership of the Chief Operator and the Operator in Charge the central office group handled the in to operate the traffic without interruption spite of the confusion. The young women cited in the award included Mae (Armstrong, Chief Operator; Margaret Dugan, Operator in Charge; Bernadette Butler, Anna and Catherine Dalton, Anna Mur- phy, Anna, Kathryn and Marion O’Brien, Elizabeth Rowland, Eve- lyn Swoyer, Isabelle Teeley and Anna Whalen. The medal awarded to John Paul Croft, of Lancaster, was ac- companied by a citation “for in- itiative and conspicuous profi- ciency in first aid, resulting in the saving, of 2 human life.” On April 22d. at the. intersection of Hum- mel Avenue and Third Street, Le- moyne, Mr. Croft heard a scream and after a trolley car nassed found a woman holding in her arms a child, both of whose legs had been run over Realizing that the bleeding was arterial,: he grasped: the child at, the points of pressure at the thighs. stopped: the bleeding and carried her to a doec- tor’s office at the corner. There he assisted the doctor until compresses and tourniquets were applied and then took the woman and the child to the hospital, where it was found necessary to amputate the little girl’s feet. The medals will be presented early in the future at special exer cises to be held in Philadelphia. places, apparently as an alternative for giving up the belief wholly, it was held that in order to witness these three leaps one must look, not at the sun itself, but at the reflection of it in a pool of clear water. As a last resort, to save the belief, the sun might be made to dance. Brand could recall that when he was a boy he had seen “a vessel full of water set in the open air, in which the reflected sun seemed to dance, from the tremulous motion of the water.” If the moun- tain will not come to Mahomet, then Mahomet must go to the mountain. Among the customs handed down through long ages and accepted by the Church were those of Easter eggs and the Easter tale which the preach- er told from the pulpit, in lieu of a sermon connecting it with Christian reminiscences. Later still there were in Germany dramatic shows, named Osterspiele, executed by twelve per- the leader, and represented Summer beating Winter out of the land. dances and sports prevalent at Easter Eggs Past and Present. The custom of associating eggs with Easter, like mary other custems of Christian festivals, was derived from pagan usages. Eggs had been associated with the worship of Ashto- reth, of the Astarte of the Phenecians, Isis of Egypt, Diana of the Greeks and Romans and Eostre of the Teu- tons worshipped in spring. Easter is said by some to have derived its name from the latter goddess; others say it was named for an old pagan spring festival in honor of the ‘sun’s new birth in the east. Tts time co- inciding with that of the 'Resurrec- tion, the symbol was taken over by the council of Nice 1,062 years ago, and the day of celebration fixed as the first Sunday after the paschal full moon, the season of the Hebrew Pass- over. The egg with its life germ, des- tined to burst forth after the appear- formers one of whom, apparently, was . The |! urrection, this | adopted it as a sign of man’s regener- season in Germany among the youths : ation, ance of death, became popularly as- sociated with the general idea of res- just as the Egyptians had and the Jews as a symbol of and maidens appear sometimes to | their delivery from bondage. to have been marked with something | The lore of Easter eggs touches on p of the looseness characteristic of the any phases of life in many different floral games in Italy. ere —— A ————— Bell Company Shows 63,241 Tele- phones in Operation. An increase of 63,241 telephones over the 1,061,571 in operation on January 1, 1927, is shown in the an- | nual report to the board of directors of the Bell Telephone company of Pennsylvania, just released. Of this total, 307,645 telephones or 29 per- cent of all Bell telephones in the State were being operated on the dial basis at the end of the year. The Bell Telephone company of Pennsylvania, according to the re- port, now owns 105 buildings in the State and rents 363. One building is now in course of construction. Dur- ing the past year the company’s in- vestment in land and buildings ap- proximated $28,000,000. An interesting feature of the report is found in the daily volume of tele- phone calls last year. The daily av- erage in 1927 was 4,674,000 in ad- dition to handling 281,400 toll calls. The report shows that there are now in the Bell system 228 connecting companies serving 221,692 telephones in addition to 12,215 telephones op- erated on service lines owned by mu- tual associations. countries. Under old ecclesiastical laws in England rent was payable in ' eggs of Easter; games were played with them: and in the north of Eng- land children asked for them to play with. The custom of dyeing Easter eggs is centuries old. Commoners for the most part dyed them red as a symbol of Christ’s blood. Lords and ladies covered theirs with gold leaf. Later the decorations were elaborated, par- ticularly in continental Europe. times the eggs were merely marbled in a varity of colors; sometimes they bore cupids and love knots, flaming hearts and signs of the zodiac. Again they would be halved and the shells hinged together with ribbon and lined with gzilt paper and religious pictures. Venetians used to send out gift eggs bearing their portraits. Tourist Map will be Ready on 10th of May. Revision of the tourist map pub- lished annually by the Department of Highways was completed recently and the contract let for printing the first lot of 150,000. Delivery of the first shipment is estimated for May 10, earlier than any year since the law provided for free distribution of such a map. Some- De Luxe Autos with Bars for French Travel. A fleet of ten “grand luxe” auto- cars fitted with a bar, at which the passengers may be served their fa- vorite cocktails during the voyage, will be ready to transport incoming tourists to Paris this season, accord- ing to plans being made by a large agency. The directors of the compay say the cars will be pullman cars on wheels with special springs for riding qualities and will deliver passengers in Paris eight hours after their ar- rival ‘from. the liners. A stop will be made at the half- way for lunch in some picturesque Normandy “Auberge.” A barman will be in attendance who will act also in the capacity of guide and will point out the interesting sights along the route. “The cars will pass the Malmaison and the Castle at St. Germain into Paris and will drop the passengers at their hotels.” The management of the new bus lines point out that the new trans- ortation will enable passengers on the small liners to get better service into Paris than heretofore. Up to the present time the railway company would not furnish special trains for the liners arriving with a small number of tourists. These pas- sengers were obliged to take “local” trains that made a ten hour run into Paris. With the new system the com- pany hopes to get the unfortunate ones into Paris as soon as those pas- sengers off the big liners. Plan Inspection of All Roadside Stands. Plans have been completed for the spring clean-up of public eating and drinking places throughout the Com- monwealth. This activity, according to Howard M. Haines, chief of the restaurant hygiene section, State De- partment of Health, will include a thorough inspection of roadside eat- ing stands located on the main and secondary highways; to protect the motoring public. The health officer personnel will be used by the department making the actual investigations which will be di- rected toward general cleanliness, method of cleansing eating utensils, protection of foodstuffs and the medi- cal examination of food handlers. ~—Subscrihe for the Watchman. Pennsylvania Rail- road Stock ERTAIN action in the interest of the holders of Pennsylvania Railroad Stock is to be taken at the Annual Meeting of the Shareholders to be held April 10, 1928. Do not neglect sending in the proxy that you have received from the company, as a -wo thirds vote will be necessary to effect this action. The First. National Bank BELLEFONTE, PA. Thought and Action o doubt you have thought many times about making your Will but yet have delayed it. Now is the time to act upon that good im- pulse. 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