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Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXXI, Issue 10273, 15 February 1894, Page 4

When, referring on Tuesday to the affairs of the Scottish and New Zealand Investment Company, we stated that our local contemporary had found its evidence of the withdrawal of capital in the fact that the Oompanv had obtained a bank overdraft of <£30,000. This did our contemporary some injustice. In a rather hasty perusal of its criticism, w© read hank overdraft in place of bank draft, and proceeded to show that the former did not necessarily involve the withdrawal of capital from the colony. The mistake was, of course, a verv absurd one, and it is only natural that our contemporary should make the most of it; but the suggestion that we deliberately misquoted the article is even more ridiculous than our own blunder. Wo did not strengthen, or wish to strengthen, our argument by the substitution of “ bank overdraft ” for “ bank draft ” ; indeed, the comments upon the position of the Investment Company virtually had nothing to do with the point at issue. Our contention was plain enough, and the eagerness with which our contemporary grasped at the shadow of an excuse to abandon the subject, is pretty clear evidence that we managed to establish, our case. Under these circnmstances, it is not difficult to understand why our contemporary concludes that there is nothing to be, gained, the discussion,.

BT' VALKN-? TINE.

St Valentine's day come and gone once moraj Some will have it that the

time-immemorial custom is fast dying out, though the shop-window displays scarcely warrant that assumption. There seems, however, to be a tendency td dispense with the silly caricatures that are an excrescence upon the original ideas, and to depart from the flimsily constructed devices of "Doves and darts, and Cnpid’d fluttering wings, and broken hearts, and alt such stupid things,” in favour of somd pretty or useful gift. How the custoia originated none may say with certainty.! One will authoritatively tell you that it id useless to go beyond the corruption “ gallantin,” synonymous with a gallant, a lover, a dangler; though, indeed, this discloses nothing of the origin. Others—and these exponents largely preponderate—: refer to the Sfc Valentine who, in Borne, on a fourteenth of February, in the reign of Aurolian, or in that of Claudius 11., was beaten with clubs and then beheaded} though, again, it is not easy to discover any connection between the martyred priest and the sending of “ Those wing’d postillions that can fly From the Antarctic to the Arctic sky.” Shakspere makes Ophelia refer to the observance of the day, and exponents of the bard have called attention to certain feasts''that were celebrated in ancient Borne during the month of February, when amidst a variety of ceremonies the names of young women were put into a bos, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed. And this sort of lottery seems to have been adopted, in the days of long ago, both in England and Scotland, on the eve of St Valentine’s day, as a note written in the early part of the last century clearly shows. Maids and bachelors met together in equal numbers, drew lots for partners, and then “ the valentines give balls and treats to their mistresses, wear their billets several days upon their bosoms or sleeves, and this little sport often ends in love.”

An observance that has in some years increased the burdens of the English postmen by additional

SOME OP THE OLD CUSTOMS.

missives numbering more than a million and a half, must obviously have gained a strong hold upon the people. But surely the seasons have changed sadly since the poets were wont to associate the mating of birds and all the exuberances of spring with a date that nowadays is associated with heavy snowstorms and furious gales. Who can reconcile Praed with existing English conditions when he sings• The breath o£ the morning is flinging A magic on blossom and spray. And cockneys and sparrows are singing In chorus on Valentino’s Day. Sir H. Wottoa refers to the bursting vines and birds drawing their valentines, and amatory Herrick declares that birds choose their mates this day. But, for a moment Let’s laugh at them that choose Their valentines by lot. In one of a series of essays published in 1755 or thereabouts, a lady contributor related how on Valentine’s eve she got five bay-leaves, pinned four of them to the four corners of her pillow and the fifth in the middle, and dreamed of her valentine. “ But to make it more sure, I boiled an egg hard and took out the yolk, and filled it with salt; and when I went to bed, ate it, shell and all, without speaking or drinking after it.” Small wonder that she dreamed after a supper such as that. “We also," she tells, " wrote our lovers* names upon bits of paper, and rolled them up in clay, and put them into waters and the first that rose up was to be our valentine.” Oddly enough, this test named the man of her egg-and-salt dream, and, she says, “I lay abed and shut my eyes all the morning till he came to our house, for I would not have seen another man before him for all the world.”

It would have been strange indeed if that embodiment! of quaint conceit, the min* utely observant Mr Pepys, bad not recorded something

IN THE DATS Off • 3PBPTS.

in his Diary as to the usages in the reign of Charles 11. In 1667 he wrote, “ This morning came up to my wife’s bedside (I being up dressing myself) little "Will Mercer to be her valentine, and brought bet name written upon blue paper in gold letters, done by himself, very pretty, and we were both well pleased with it.” Samuel had himself been drawn as hia wife’s valentine, which somehow was to cost him five pounds, though be derived consolation from the fact that he must have spent the money whether or no. It was in this year that he first observed the fashion of drawing mottoes as well as names. He had forgotten what his own motto was, but his wife’s was "most courteous and most fair.” It is instructive, by the way, to find that the modern “ gift ” custom is no new thing, Pepys, !n writing about the jewels possessed by the famous beauty, Mies, Stuart, afterwards Duchess of Eichmond says, “The Duke of York, being once her valentine, did give her a jews! of about >8800; and my Lord Mandoville, her valentine this year, a ring of about £3oo"* the assumption being that the pledges of devotion imposed by lottery were thus redeemed. And Mrs Plpys herself knew how to improve the shining hour. “This evening’’—this was in February, 1668 “my wife did with great pleasure show me her stock of jewels, increased by the ring she hath made lately, as my valentine'a gift this year, a Turkey-stone set with, diamonds.”