OLD FASHIONED

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3711, 21 December 1912, Page 15

OLD FASHIONED

CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS.

Christinas presents were even more customary in olden times than they are now. In addition to the usual tradesmen’s gifts, the vintner used to send a bottle of wine, the butcher an ox-tongue, the wood merchant a handsome Yule log, and the tallow-chand-ler a thick wax candle, known as a “Wassail candle,” and expected to burn all through Christmas night to bring good luck to the household. While the Yule log kept alight the key of the beer-cellar was in the servant’ s hands, so they tended it carefully. Sometimes a portion of the charred wood was kept to kindle next year’s fire. At Penistone in Yorkshire, the wood ashes were sprinkled in the dairies to bring a fortunate year for the milk and butter. '■ n A gilded nutmeg, and an apple stuck with cloves were common presents. A pair of gloves stuffed with gold coins made an acceptable gift for Queen Elizabeth- Kind old “Sir Roger de Coverley” in Queen Anne’s time sent each of'his poor tenants “a string of hogs’ puddings and a pack of cards” at Christmas and presents of pieces of Christmas pork, and pies made from the succulent pig are still seasonable gifts in the North. Card-playing, too, still holds its own as a winter amusement, but play-act-ing, once so p .pular, is dying out. It was a favorite pastime for country folk to rehearse a Morality or a “Christmas onmonty” as Shakespeare calls i , and give it at the Squire’s house on Christmas Eve. Various Virtues and Vices were represented by male characters, and although the Vices were by far the most amusing parts, they were generally carried away by the devil in person at the end, and the Virtues were left to sing a part-song, or a suitable “carowle” if they wished.

The well known “St George and the Dragon” still played by little boys in search of, coypers, is a survival of this old-amus. .ent.

The “Kissiiig-bough,” made - of yew and trimmed with paper flowers, gilt

halls and rosy apples, still hangs in Northern kitchen® and so does the mistletoe. In some parts a berry is crushed for every kiss stolen, and a well-berried hough is carefully chosen by eligible young maids. All the green decorations must he burnt by Candlemas, or else the fairies are incensed. The old tradition goes that holly and ivy. etc., were brought into the house at Christmas to shelter the “good little people” from the inclement weather, and that they ought not to be kept against their will when the days begin to lengthen. If the clock strikes during the text on Christmas Day, there will be many deaths in the parish the next year; a death during Christmas-tide also foretells many more. It is exceedingly unlucky to give away a live coal or salt on Christinas Day, or to take a lighted lantern out of the hous.e. In some places the kitchen fire is hanked up and kept alight all the night for the shadows of the dead are thought to “walk” and enviously steal another life if they are not prevented. But as the old people die, the old customs lose their hold, too. There is one thing about Christmas, however, 'that still retains all its power, the feeling of a greater kindliness and hospitality which the season always brings, the time of “Peace on earth, Goodwill to all men.”

class —they were all honorable fellows —disregarding his plighted troth. 7 ’ “There were some of them I can’t conceive regarding it. I was a young lady when your class graduated, and I knew many of its members.” “One of ns you wrong. That I know —myself.” ■» i “Indeed!’’ i “Yes. I loved a girl attached to the I academy, her father being a member | of tho academic staff.” 1 “Professors' daughters form exoelI lent material for cadets to practice j making love upon.” j “You speak in irony. I parted from | the girl I loved the night before I sailI ed right here where we are standing. I 'file moon was at the full and shone down through tho Raves, patches of light quivering noon the grass on which we stood. We vowed eternal constancy. It seemed at parting that T could not let go her hand. At last I tore myself away and the next day began tho wandering of a naval officers.”

He cowed his head, then finished in a trembling voice. “Alas when I returned a few years later to America I heard that she had married another.” “Alice told me about it.” “Alice!” “Yes. You had not been long in Japan when a cruiser returned from there bearing an officer who had met you in Tokyo. Alice met him in Washington. He knew nothing of your engagement to her and told of two atfairs of yours at the capital of Japan.” “And Alice believed these stories?” "Others told them as well.” “I swear ” “By the inconstant moon, or rather, don't swear at all. You are absolved from all blame. There is some incongruousness in a midshiuman of twenty keeping faith with his first sweetheart. Besides you have gained rather than lost. Alice is now thirty. You would not recognise, in the woman nearly middle aged the girl of nineteen. You may still flit from flower to flower for another decade and then be young enough to pluck a bud.” - “I shall never love any woman except Alice.” “You would not recognise her if yon should see her.”

“I would know her among a thousand.”

“Come and see me this evening and I will give you an opportunity to pick her out among half a dozen—the third house over there in the officers’ quarters.”

She passed on. leaving the lieutenant uneasy. He could not remember very well how Alice D. had looked as a girl. Now that she was ten years older to recognise her would he difficult. Nevertheless the officers of the United States navy are used to standing by their guns jn more than one respect. He called on the lady ho met and found five other women of ages between eighteen and thirty. He entered the room, casting furtive glances on those assembled. They were all in the secret, and on the qui-vive of expectation. He was presented to them all, but none of their names were spoken. “And now,” said the hostess, “the girl you parted with ten years ago stands before you. Choose her.”

The lieutenant thought of the Indian ocean and wished he was riding on its billows. He scrutinised them all, growing the.while very red, and at last concluded to risk a choice in a ladv of twenty-five.

It was received with a hurst of laughter. “I am Alice,” said tho hostess, “and permit me to say you are the most unmitigated humbug I have ever known.”

An officer entered the room whom she introduced as her husband, a lieutenant commander.