CHRISTMAS BRIEFS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, 24 December 1910, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHRISTMAS BRIEFS

Tiio toy-makers of Paris do an enonncus export trade in 10-ceniime and 20cviitime Christmas novelties.

« M * Some East End small money-lenders make themselves quite popular during Christmas week by charging no interes: on loans outstanding.

Austrian peasants may lie said to do their “spring-cleaning’’ at Christmastime, at the advent of which every home is thoroughly turned out and cleaned, as also are all its contents.

"We provide lunch for hundreds of bu.-uncss men every day," says a London restaurant-keeper, “and ‘’Christmas e pudding, 3d a portion,’ goes well up to December 21 After that the sale diops 75 per c.-nt.’’

Highland deer in winter time are often hand-fed, and going out on a snmry Christmas morning to give them a. men! affords amusement, to the guests nt not a few Scottish mansions. Good winter care of the deer results Inter on In more exciting sport in hunting, better venison, and finer nntlers.

Christmas itself is not observed as a iestival by the Japanese. Instead, to not a. few of them, it proves anything Lnt a period of iov. AH debts in Japan have to be settled by New Year’s Day, and he who is behindhand, u-'less hix cred-tor be a lenient one. will, about Christmas-time, begin to look round to decide what personal or household effect he had better take to the great Now Year's Eve fair to be sold, in order to realise the required cash.

Competent authorities declare that thousands of persons are annually prompted to temporarily become inmates of London workhouses, solely on nccount of the Christmas mid New Yc.nr fes'iriti'-s held ihcro. It is estimated that last year the prospect of a sumptuous, gratis, Christmas dinner attracted now paupers nt the rate of 2.f!00 per week. Had there been no such feasts, it is believed that the 73.000 paun?rs in the London workhomos vould have boon reduced by at least 20,030 in number.

The night before Christmas Day is. as a rule, u period of comfort and cordiality. Very different it last year proved to numbers of liolidav-mnkers i>\ their wav to Ireland. ’Waiting nt Greenock for steamers that were being held irr- by dense fog, tbev had to spend Christmas Eve in the waitingtcom there.

The Erupero.- of Austria likes tr> spend Christmas with his children and grnnd-ehildr-'n at Walfece, the estate in Styria, (Austro-Hungarvl of his daughter the Archduchess Marie Valeric. When th- Emperor iroes there many guns and game-bags for shooting, as well as bales of toys and other presents, precede him.

Christmas'-time American visitors to English shores quite often wax enthusiastic at sight of a "real old English” hollv bush, covered with red berries. At Nice where, in the Christmas flower rnrrket, largo bunches of roses, lilies, carnations, etc., can be bought for n few pence, tiny snrigs of holly and mistletoe sell for high prices. ♦ » » •

Constantinople has a large Greek ponnlsit'on, and a curious difference exists between one custom of th-Gre-ks and the native Turk-. Greek servants export to receive Christmas gifts from their employers: but the Mohammedan servant, instead, makes present to his master. Generally, it fakes th? form of sweetmeats of some kind.

Christmas-time. 1903 will long h" remembered by the neorle of one small group of towns in the Pyrenees. Snow broke the electric light wires, and left the district in darkness, it also stopped the electric railway, the onlv means of eninmunicat’on with th? outside world. Tfu-ee avalanch"s fell, des+roying many buildings, blocking a river, and so causing a flood.

Rln-running is fast becoming nopnlar in Scotland - and if th-re be onlv plenty of snow there this Christmastime m.i'iv havdv noFhornors wi’l t.hen be indulging in the mistime. The district south of loch Noss nnroars to be that most suited for ski-running, fo? the moors there, often h-avil' - covered ti’ith snow that lias a hard sn”f‘'ce. are also fairly fro? from heather.

Tn some parts of Eng’n.nd yule-logs —to bp purchased of timber dealers, and which, for the sake of convenience, can bo had cut up into comparatively small .section.' - are in great-r demand than for some Him* past. Of them a recent writ-r has said : “No fire is so pleasant to wheel a chair to on a winter s nmlit, and no fire is so pleasant for family festivities.”