Christmas Gifts for Home.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 302, 20 December 1895, Page 3

Christmas Gifts for Home.

'GRAPHIC CHRISTMAS NUMBER.

It is nob many weeks now till Christmas, and reminders of the rapid approach of the merry season are becoming more frequent every day. One of the most welcome of these reminders is the Christmas number of fche " Now Zealand Graphic," which is now on sale at all the qhief stationers and bookBtalls throughout the colony. This popular annual has in the past established a high reputation for itself as a first-clas9 example of colonial arb. It has been recognised as far and away the nioab successful attempt, in these-colonies, to present the public with a publication thoroughly native to the soU> upon the lines of the chief illustrated annuals of the Old Country and America. This year, the issue can lay claim to peculiar excellence, aud can easily challenge comparison with its Home contemporaries. Tha engravings, which are very numerous, aro finished worka of art, representing some of tha most interesting and beautiful places in the colony. They are either reproductions of pictures painted specially for the "Graphic" by well-known New Zealand arfcwts or fvom phobop. Aa an album of Mew Zealand scenery, ths number would be difficult, <•• -»rpass. in addition to illustrations, tiu-i. ,-. the usual amount of interesting unu appropriate reading matter. The annual should be on every table throughout the colony, and no more fitting present than a copy of it could be fcanb to friends ab Home. If we wish those absent ones to form some clear conception of this far-off land—and mosb of ub do wish thab our friends should nob be in total ignorance of the conditions of life in this young colony—we canuobdo better than send themja Christmas "Graphic." In getting up the number, the publishers kept steadily in view the fact they had learned from the experience of previous years—namely, that one of the chief functions of the annual was thab of a Christmas gift for our friends at Home. They therefore made it as representative of the colony as possible, so that it might be all the more novel and attractive to readers on the other side of tho world. One of the mosb attractive of the illustrations to an Aucklander'a eye will undoubtedly be the panoramic view of Auckland city and harbour from the summit of Rangitoto. Never has there been produced a pictu/e of the city by the Waitemata which shows at a glance as this does tha wonderful conformation of the isthmus on which Auckland stands, with the Pacific on every hand It is a picture that cannot fail to please. The beautiful view of Waitakerei Falls is a

fine sample of Auckland forest scenery. Issued with the number is a magnificent coloured panoramic view of Uhristchurch city and its port. Altogether the annual is all that the publishers claim for ib when they describe ib as of " exceptional merit) and excellence."