A CENTURY AGO.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 1197, 20 December 1924, Page 12

A CENTURY AGO.

CHRISTMAS IN SYDNEY. AN EARLY SURFING FATALITY. According to the Sydney Gazette'of December 20, 1825, Sydney celebrated a merry Cnnstnms one hundred years ago. In the market there •‘appeared an abundance of all the delicacies and substantial lor this happy season of the year.” The shoppers of that time (says a writer in a Sydney paper) seem to have made some bargains. Potatoes were only 5s bd a cwt. The housewife of to-day would know a merry Christmas could she purchase potatoes for less than three-farthings a pound. Poultry of all kinds was plentiful and cheap, fowls being sold for half-a-crown. JJut butter was 2s a pound, and eggs were Is 7jd a dozen, about the present-day price of these goods. Large quantities of fruit were on sale, but with the exception of oranges and apricots nearly all of it was green, owing to a late season. The price of a 21b loaf of bread was 3^d. Many shops advertised Christmas attractions, and according to one advertisement loaf sugar was a particular delicacy offered to the public. Apparently a number of convicts decided to celebrate a Christmas of freedom, for the Gazette publishes a long list of prisoners who absented themselves without leave from their places of work. The surf evidently had its patrons at Christmas a century ago, for the death is recorded of John Fraser, “the second oldest Australian,” who died as the result of bathing in the sea when in a heated condition. As the first settlers arrived in 1788, the second oldest Australian would not be more than 35 jeara of age. There" were no Christmas pantomimes, and but few of the other attractions we eipoy at this festive season. But according to the slight information supplied bv the piess of that time. Sydney folk had neverthe-1-jsl a. marry Christmas.