St. Peter, Martyr, Bp. of Alexandria, A. D. 311. St. Nicon, surnamed Metanoite, A. D. 998. St. Sylvester Gozzolini, A. D. 1267. St. Conrad, Bp. of Constance, A. D. 976.
A New Moon Custom,
and “more last words” respecting
Captain Starkey.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Sir,
I do not remember to have seen in your book, “where every-day we turn the leaf to read,” any notice of a custom, which is not only very prevalent, but which is, also, most harmless in its nature and endearing in its tendency—promotes in its practice goodwill and good humour—and, not unfrequently, with those who view the “future i’ th’ instant,” love itself. Among the many new moon customs, such as looking through a new silk handkerchief to ascertain the number of your lovers, feeling for money in your pocket, to see if you will have a lucky month, &c.; I know of none so pleasant, or, to my thinking, so rational, as that of claiming the FIRST KISS FOR A PAIR OF NEW GLOVES! The person, in a company, male or female, who first gets a glimpse of the new moon, immediately kisses some member of the company, and pronounces with a triumphant chuckle, “Aha! Jane, (or as the name may be,) there’s a pair of gloves for me!” By this means a pleasant interruption is often given to a tedious tale, or uninteresting debate, and a new subject starts, in which all may join with greater or less avidity. How happy is some modest youth, should the blushing and ingenuous girl, whom he has secretly “singled from the world,” have laid him under the penalty of a pair of new gloves, by that soft phrase and that first delicious kiss—how fruitful are his sweet anticipations of that golden time—
“When life is all one dream of love and flowers.”
How joyful is an amiable sister, if, by this species of initiation, she has been enabled to re-conciliate the vagrant affections of some estranged brother: and even where love and sisterly feelings are out of the question, viewed as an interchange of common (common!) friendship, between the sexes, how felicitous is it in effect and operation! Should you, Mr. Editor, be of opinion with me, respecting this no longer “tyrant custom,” you may, possibly, by printing this letter be productive of much good humour, and a pair of new gloves.
I am,
Your constant and approving reader,
W. G. T.
Newcastle-on-Tyne.
P. S. I cannot write the name of the town where I reside, without feeling a strong inducement to say one word of him, who has been so pleasantly immortalized by yourself, and the inimitable being who wrote so affectingly of “Rosamund Gray,” and the “Old Familiar Faces”—I mean poor Starkey. I was born, and have lived all my life (not a long one), in the town where he terminated his humble career, and gave another name to the neglected and unpitied list of those, who seem chiefly to have entered the world for the purpose of swelling