L LOCOMOTIVE JOURNAL PUBLISHED BY THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS Hail and Farewell BY LORA KELLY JANUARY, 1917 In mystic shallop of white and gold Comes Father Time from worlds untold- No compass needs he in his hands From out the rose and pearl of Dawn Takes 'way one that he brought A voyager to History's court, -Cleveland Plain Dealer, Dec. 26, 1915. The Old Year Out and the New Year In BY EDITH V. ROSS The celebration of New Year's day in New York has necessarily changed with the people who celebrate it. It was transplanted to New Amsterdam from Holland when a few houses clustered about the fort and every person in the village knew every other person. That was a fit community for making calls. When the people of New York had grown from hundreds to millions the custom broke down of its own weight. How far back dates the custom of seeing the old year out and the new year in is not known. Certain it is that one night in New Amsterdam-December 31 - Hendrick, the watch, after calling the hour Number 1 "Twelve o'clock and all's well!" turned to walk to the next corner to repeat the announcement, when he saw the house of Killian van Gansback in a blaze of illumination from fully a dozen wax candles. Hammering with the great iron knocker, the upper half of the door was opened, and he saw a number of Dutch girls in many petticoats and young men in many pairs of breeches raising pewter mugs to drink in Holland gin to St. Nicholas, the patron saint of the town, "May he grant us a prosperous year!" "What means this invasion of the night when all good citizens should be sound asleep in bed?" he cried. "Disperse!" The moment it was noticed that the intruder upon the festivities was the watch every light was blown out and there was a scattering of the revelers. Bolts were shot, and in a few minutes the rooms on the ground floor were locked and the great front door was barred. At that time Katrina van Gansback was at a marriageable age, and her father had decided to wed her to old Dedrick Beekman, more than twice as old as she. Her mother was dead, and she had been brought up under the care of her aunt, Anneke Ten Eyck, a spinster of fifty. During the festivities on that eventful night the aunt drew Beekman into a side room for the purpose of arranging the settlement he was to make upon her niece and to appoint a day for the wedding. Katrina was not only opposed to marrying old Beekman, but had a lover in young |