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poorly at the Comas ball that evening, refusing to dance with any lady. He gave a Lydia a diamond necklace and a few days later left town with another actress named Lotta Crabtree who was playing the The Little Detective to whom he gave an armband set in diamonds, pearls and Turquoises.
Willy-nilly Alexas helped set many tradition in New Orleans, like the official holiday, Rex - King of Carnival and the official carnival song, If Ever I cease to Love._
Mardi Gras - Mardi Gras in French means Fat Tuesday, a realistic Gallic term referring to Shrove Tuesday of the Church calendar, that last day of feasting before forty‘days of fasting...this year falling on March	1.
In these United states Mardi Gras means	the annual
spontaneous convergence of thousands of visitors, from all over the nation, on the coast cities of New Orleans, Mobile and Biloxi to participate in its celebration-the Greatest Free Show In The South. No admission is required. No conditions imposed--except that the guests are invited and expected to join the fun. On this day actors and audience are both part of the fun-until-midnight parades and pageantry on which many thousands of dollars	and a	year's
efforts have been expended by the three	host	cities	in	the
preparation of costumes and floats.
-r‘1’rardi Gras is a celebration older than Christianity itself. Its beginning goes back to those prehistoric days when ancient Greece was as yet only nom'ad tribes of shepherds. Among those pagan peoples it was a Spring sacrificial festival, in which it was a Spring sacrificial festival, in which the villagers thanked their gods for the fertility of their land, their animals and their women. As this rustic custom was absorbed by the magnificent empires of Greece and Rome it was expanded and corrupted into a day of licentiousness and lust until it was finally tempered, tamed and timed by the early Christian Church as the last day of indulgence in wine and food and revelry--the final farewell to flesh before the Lenten Season. It followed the Church throughout Europe and became one of the most eagerly awaited annual celebrations of Italy, France and even England.
Mardi Gras in America was first celebrated in 1699 here on the Gulf Coast by d'Iberville and several companions who had left Old Biloxi (Ocean Springs) on an exploration trip. On Mardi Gras day they found themselves in a lonely bayou which they named Bayou Mardi Gras. This ceremony and a drink of


Mardi Gras Document (003)
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