Snowball Fun

Marietta Intelligencer, January 13, 1857

We witnessed a scene in front of our office this morning, which recalled most vividly our boyhood's days in the long snowy winters of New England. Invited by the mildness of the morning and the peculiar adaptedness of the snow for snowballing, an editor and a couple of merchants tried their hands at this sport and made a target of each other's heads. 

The doors and shops and sidewalks were soon filled with eager spectators of the sight. The excitement rapidly increased; one, and then another, and another entered the lists, until very soon the street was full of men turned boys again, each one fighting on his own hook.

Here was a hardware dealer disputing his ground manfully with the man of leather and prunella; there a jeweler pouring in the grape, cold, but heavy, upon the head and shoulders of his neighbor of the "fancy goods" trade. 

Yonder, Mynhear Editor, bare-headed, sustaining a shower of balls that made his raven-like hair as hoary white as if frosted with three score and ten winters, while he in turn filled every orifice of his adversary's caput with the pasty snow. 

Here again was the vendor of pills and patent medicines in close embrace with his friend of the Furnishing Depot, rolling each over and over in the snow, and each anxious to wash the other's face as he came uppermost in the tussle. 

There a Democrat and a Republican pitching into each other "like a thousand of brick," throwing heavier balls and with more effect in this mimic fight than in the real battle of November last. 

And thus the fight raged for half an hour, when, exhausted and breathless, the forces drew off to repair damages and recuperate their wasted energies. It was a rich scene, the like of which we have not witnessed for many a year, and which in all probability will not be repeated during our lifetime.

About six inches of snow fell last night. The weather is quite mild to-day, cloudy and threatening rain.