GOOD-NATURED AND GLEEFUL?

     Early settlers were mostly Pennsylvania Dutch with names like Hite, Allstadt and Wager.  Workmen at the armory included many Irishmen.  There was good-natured violence between these groups:  on St. Patrick's Day the Germans paraded with effigies of the saint, and the Irish assailed them with fists and clods.  On St. Michael's Day the Irish turned out with a highly insulting figure of Germany's national saint necklaced in sauerkraut, and the Germans gleefully sallied out to riot.

-- from Harper's Ferry:  Prize of War by Manly Wade Wellman (McNally of Charlotte, 1960)


Good-natured violence, eh?  Sometimes the good ol' days aren't quite so good.