The Westport Times AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1868.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 169, 14 February 1868, Page 2

The Westport Times AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1868.

It is a pleasant thing sometimes to call upon the stores of memory to furnish us with a remembrance of the " old country" in this a strange land. It is this hallowed remembrance of other times that endears Christmas to us, with its visions of happy faces, old associations, and the days when we were young. But Christmas is now numbered with the past, and another connecting link —not a festival—not a holiday —has come round to us again, bringing our boyhood days once more before us. Poets have sung from the time of quaint old George Herrick downwards, " of the morn of Valentine, when birds begin to mate," and old gossip-loving Pepys tells us in thac truthful, simple, but most interesting picture of the times of the " merrie monarch " —his diary—how he arose up early in the morning and peeped over the garden-wall, hoping thereby to catch a glimpse of saucy, mirthloving Nell Gwynne, in order that she might be his valentine. These are the pleasant spots in a people's history to dwell upon, and to let imagination run riot on ; and many an anxious maiden, in the simple belief that she was destined to wed the first man she saw on this eventful morning, has opproached the window-blind trembling, but yet anxious withal, to see if the favored swain was within sight. But the old custom is dying away like

many other old customs, for we are getting more sceptical every day, and discard the simple belief in St. Valentine's Day as nonsense. The world is getting too much with us, and anything we ca'nnot see, feel, or hear, we are apt to reject as superstition. Therefore, we ridicule it as being only fit for women and children, more especially on the utilitarian West Coast. Here we have no traditions, no past, and we cannot understand the feeling that prompted our mothers and grandmothers to reverence and attach an importance to St. Valentine's Day. Here *' in this new land of ours" no red-coated postman is seen staggering under a load of letters, and arousing the whole expectant household with his rat-tat, for luckless must be the individual in these modern times, who, in other lands did not receive either a gem in the shape of a fancifully cut paper, or a flaring staring caricature y'elept a valentine, the examining of which would either cause a joyous laugh, or an exclamation of impatience and petulance which showed that the shaft had hit home. We do regret the gradual dying out, as it were, of the harmless English customs, but are thankful as they roll around on the fleeting wheel of time for their ren3embrariee. " May G-od keep my memory green," was the earnest prayer of an old English writer, and all we ask is the same, so that the manners and customs of our Fatherland may not pass away without our paying an humble tribute to their memory. St. Valentine's Day may be deemed an absurdity, but still we cherish it for " anld acquaintance sake."

A case of great importance to a large portion of the community will be decided to-day in the Resident Magistrate's Court, and although it has before reported in our columns, we will briefly allude to the chief points in the case: One Malcolm Stevenson, summoned a packer for tolls due him for passage of defendant's horses over a track for which he had received protive right, and liberty to charge toll. The chief point in the case for the defence was the state in wdiich the track should be kept. By the conditions imposed in his lease, the track is always, and at all seasons, to be in a good state of repair, and this, according to the evidence of the defendant's witnesses, was not the case. There is no doubt that chief cause of this action being brought was the bombast of Mr Crate, in addressing the electors before the late election, in which he defied the power of any one but the Governor to grant protective rights, and stated that the packers were not justified in paying toll, and could legally resist the imposition. There is much to be said for both sides of the question, and we will comment upon it after the Magistrate has given his decision, but it seems only fair, that whilst the packers are entitled to a good track for the amount charged for the use of one, the maker is entitled to all the protection the law can give him, and to every point in his favor, either by long seasons of unfavorable weather, or the unstability of the ground to be worked. At the same time we strongly object to private protective rights, believing that road making is one of the special functions of a government.