Christmas In Other Lands

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27273, 27 December 1949, Page 5

Christmas In Other Lands

AUSTRALIA The weather for the Christmas holidays has so far been perfect, with sunshine and light breezes, and th*e -forecast is for continued fine weather. On Saturday afternoon the temperature in Sydney rose steadily to 96.8 degrees, but a cool southerly breeze brought relief at nightfall. More people went to church in Sydney on Sunday than on any Christmas Day for many years. The main exodus from the city has ceased but today hundreds of hikers are leaving for scenic resorts. Other attractions are the Summer Cup day at Randwick and the start of the Hobart Yacht Race, the contestants in which will be in view most of today as they work off the coast. In Brisbane yesterday the temperature was 94.5—the second hottest Christmas Day on record. Other State capitals report brilliant weather.—Sydney, December 26. UNITED STATES

One hundred thousand twinkling lights in a long line of tail Christmas trees turned New York’s Park avenue into a fairyland. Christmas carols were the music of the night in shops, lobbies, railway stations and taxi cabs. The Federal Reserve Board announced, that department store sales throughout the nation last week were 1 per cent, ahead of the corresponding week of 1948. The Penowa Coal Company, in Pittsburgh, struck a bright note in the gloomy coal situation. The company gave each of its 600 miners 151 b of turkey and advanced pay day by five days. The miners, on the orders of their union, have been working only a three-day week. Mr Tom Jones of Auckland, and his six fellowweathermen stationed at the Arctic outpost at Mould Bay, in Canada’s north-west, gave up hope today of getting their Christmas presents when the supply plane again failed to get through. Their only contact with the world over Christmas will be by radio. —New York, December 24. ISRAEL

The normal population of Bethlehem of 13,000’was increased to about 20,000, including 500 pilgrims who reached Bethlehem in spite of restrictions. In the starlit hills of Judea around the little town men with tommy-guns peered across no man’s land between the Arab and Jewish territory, but there was peace among the hills—a peace broken only by the peal of church bells coming from the valley below. Services were held in churches and in the square before the Church of the Nativity. A choir sang carols. More than 1000 attended midnight mass at the Catholic Church of St. Catherine’s adjoining the Church of the Nativity. British and American ambassadors to Israel were present. —Jerusalem, Dec. 25. GERMANY

This year was the happiest Christmas Germans have spent since the war. German children found the best assortment of toys seen for years owing to the release of metals for toy-making. However, five-year-old Chrinta Kretschmann swallowed a toy balloon and died of strangulation. West Berlin dealers complained that a consignment of 60,000 Christmas trees was held up somewhere in the Soviet zone.—Berlin. Dec 25. FRANCE

Paris celebrated a Christmas equal to pre-war days. The theatres were filled and the restaurants were packed. On Christmas eve, during a party in a small roadside hotel at Ris-Orangis, a gas main exploded killing the proprietor and his wife outright. While firemen searched for bodies a second explosion occurred demolishing the building and burying and seriously injuring six firemen.—Paris, Dec. 25. ITALY

Half a-million Romans and 10.000 Pilgrims passed through the holy door ■of St Peter’s basilica today to begin, spiritual exercises for the Catholic church’s 1950 jubilee. There were reports of unusual religious fervour in industrial Milan. Meanwhile, the Pope, apparently untiring, received privately and in official audience foreign envoys and dignitaries.—Rome, Dec. 25. CZECHOSLOVAKIA

In Prague, the press congratulated Czechoslovak citizens on a merry Christmas and told them that times were bad in the western countries. Prague, Dec. 25.