The posey dance of St. Augustine was introduced in the following manner: “The females of a family, no matter what their rank or station in life may be, erect in a room of their house a neat little altar, lit up with candles, and dressed with pots and festoons of flowers. This is understood by the gentlemen as a polite invitation to call and admire the taste of the fair architects. It is continued for several successive evenings; in the meantime the lady selects from her visitors some happy beau, whom she delights to honor, and presents him with a bouquet of choice flowers. His gallantry is then put to the test; should he choose to decline the proffered honor, he has only to pay the expenses of lighting up the altar. But if he accepts the full dignity offered him, he is king of the ball, which shortly succeeds, and the posey lass becomes queen, as a matter of course. The posey ball is a mixed assembly. People of all ranks meet here on a level, yet they are conducted with the nicest decorum, and even with politeness and grace. “Sherivarees are parties of idle people, who dress themselves in grotesque masquerade, whenever a widow or widower is married. They often parade about the streets and play buffoon tricks for two or three days; haunting the residence of the new married pair, and disturbing the whole city with noise and riot. “The carnival is a scene of masquerading, which was formerly celebrated by the Spanish and Minorcan populations with much taste and gayety; but since the introduction of an American population, it has during the whole winter season been prostituted to cover drunken revels, and to pass the basest objects of society into the abodes of respectable people, to the great annoyance of the civil part of the community.”[38] These and other customs have long since ceased to exist, and many are already forgotten. One of these was “shooting the Jews,” originally a religious ceremony, but afterwards a diversion. For many years it was the custom to hang effigies at the street corners and upon the plaza on the evening of Good Friday. When the bells in the cathedral, which are never rung during Good Friday, began on Saturday morning at ten o’clock to ring the Hallelujah, crowds of men in the streets commenced to shoot with guns and pistols at the hanging effigies. This was continued until some unerring marksman severed the cord about the neck of the image, or perhaps it was riddled and shredded by the fusilade. The Spanish veil was until a late period the only covering for the head worn by the ladies of the town. A lady now living has described the disapproval manifested at the appearance of the first bonnet in church. Great indignation was expressed, and loud protests against the insult offered to the church and congregation by this supposed exhibition of ill-breeding and irreverence.