"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND

Otago Witness, Issue 2761, 13 February 1907, Page 75

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND

-written for the Witness Ladies' Page.)

CAROLS IN V.

JSanta Claus is abroad in the land, and fcaa a lot to be answerable for — good, bad, and indifferent r But chiefly good. He fa a jovial, generous-handed old gentleman, and spite of harassed mothers and .worried fathers and uncles, «and patrons of -charitable institutions whose 'chequebook is in too frequent use just now, tbe grey-bearded .benefactor of childhood is. more welcomed than shunned. Even if, for no other -reason, he should be welcomed by the guardians of youth for the beneficial influences of his sway. It would be injudicious, penny-wise and pound-foolishness to banish him, for he converts December into a month of regeneration for, the children, who, to win his approbation, .resurrect buried virtues and assume an altruism which, in the struggle of child-life for existence, sinks, eleven months of the year, into insignificance. The moral sway of Santa Claus, the standard which he sets up for Every little boy or gall That's born into the world alive.

• « . . Either a little Radical Or else a little Conservative, is indisputable. For it is never admitted that this dispenser of rewards passes over any young portal that dees not testify to obedience. Older hearts are too sore in remembrance of their own empty stockings, hung vainly for Fate to fill, to send empty away those pleas for good which Santa Claus is supposed to fill — expectantly, timorously hoped to fill. Oh ! those stockings hung up to Fate ! ■ — stockings of Hope, Love, Effort, Desire, which, spite of disappointment, we still hang up. I have been naughty all the day, Dear Santa Claus ; Although I'm punished, I have had my way, Dear Santa Ciaus ; And now — 'tis evening — I regret my will, I don't expect my stocking you will fill, StiJ Pitt eomething in. I hang my stocking up in fear,

• Kind Santa Claus! ; 'T£s fiill of holes — I wore it all the year— i Kind Santa Claus; And wool for darning has been so delayed, That sole and heel is wofully befrayed, , Still Put something in. Something so large it can't slip through, Rich Santa Claus; I wouldn't tell to anyone but you,

Rich Santa Claus; How often I have watched to see, at morn, "With what you'd fill those stockings so much worn, . Still Put something in. I've sometimes tried to be a little goo 3,

Good Santa Claus ; Often I haven't done the things I would,

Good Santa Claus; Then I've been banished, all alone, in tears, Tc bear in darkness a long m?ht of years. Still . Put something in. I'to sometimes given my best toys away, Generous Santa Claus; Aad only kept the broken bits for play, Generou3 Santa Claus ; Kilt, grudging, when the bits would 'git no

Part, * Have flung them all away — and broke my heart, Sti.!

Put something in. Af you can't give me anything quite r.ew, . Dear Santa Claus ; Tho broken bits of the old toys will do,

' Dear Santa Clans ; Small, painted sold'ere, little saw Is of clay, VTers among broken gifts of vesierday, Yet; still Put pieces, in. But I *vou!d rathe: have a gift qu/.e new. Please, Santa C'aus . Kot tin, r.or stuffed with straw, but solid through, Pkass, Sauta Claua ; Not bubbles that will burst, nor gods that

break, And so for n-ew gifts I shail lie awake, You will Put new things in?

It is said that this Christmas there is more money in circulation than for some years paft. London shopkeepers for weeks past have not only been preparing for the great festival. bu{ have been reaping the reward of their prepaiation. Nowhere- in the world can the London shops Jbe outvied in catering for the young, and Jiours may be spent before the top.sjisps alone, even by those who will have' ho ' stockings hangiflg up at home oji ■Ch_£istm:»if "Eve to be filled. Every chilcj-niylljt is -realised in ■ Toyland, and oefoY^jtlie ypnders of fairyland rags and tatters stand -with wide-open, hungry eyes looking thorough bright windows at a paradise n6j^i<>r them. The manufacturers of England's own peculiar Christmas dainty, the plum pudding, have been overwhelmed with ordeis, both from home' and abroad. How many hrndreds, perhaps it is thousands, of tons cf plum pudding f lic London makers have turned out for this Christmas passes computation. The orders from abroad, especially the colonies, for plum puddings make a new record this year. Englishman the world round will be revelling on the great day on London plum pudding, specially despatched in good time to .put lhe finishing touch to the festival's joys in Davson City at 60d-eg *' below," or in the back-blocks of. the Murray or Murrunr.bidgee. .at 105deg in the, shade.- I s't'C-ulcl bo interested to leant the history oi any emigrated plum pudding

Each year in Bookiaifd; V.ooks for children grow more and more, but the -favourite writers, whether they represent FairyJand or Fact land, embody their legends in truth. The silly, sentimental day of childhood is past where a fact is minced «nd -sandwiched between a pat and a '*' dear." As past as the maidens of curls and crinolines. -

The mid-Victorian period of undiluted sentiment is over. And nothing strikes a falser note in the world of literature tocUv than that maudlin " darling" tone

KIOUS KEYS.

which obsolete journals still adopt in their pa^es for women and children — the maternal "cluck, cluck!" of the literary hen to call subscribers under its wings — poor things ! For if caterers of literary wares cannot feed tho minds and hearts and souls by the impersonal personality art of those looking to be fed, no pap of milk and water-flavoured with endearments will do it. True art is the embodiment of old truths, with the realisation and -prophecy of the new. And as the world is to the young to possess the next day, so do youths' fortune-tellers foretell strenuous days for the young.

I have been particularly struck with the tone of this year's Christmas batch of stories for children. Imagination and fancy abound, but every fancy, every image, embodies a truth, a fact.

A competition in The Reader for a prize for a letter from " A Child of Yesterday" and "A Child of To-day" is in striking evidence that sentiment is out of date, and though children didn't write the versus, people did who know the children of to-day. Dear Santa Claus, here's what I'd like

(And please remember I'm a boy), First then I want a motor-bike, > A real one, mind, and not a tcy. Then, secondly, I want a boat,

A model Dreadnot worked by steam, Last year my unkle — silly goat! —

Gave me one made of choklate cream, As if I was a beestly kid !

I like a present now that lasts (I ate it all the same — I did,

Down to the icing on the masts) A gramafone I think comes next,

If yeu. fupply the rekords, do so, Good komic one* — I shall be vexed

If you send Melba and Caroosc! I'd like a knife, a criket bat,

Some go!f cubs (putters, cheeks, and such), A fishing rod ; but don't mind that, In case you think I ask too much. I hope you won't, but if you do,

I'll do without (so don't get shirt>) Some of tho things say one (or two), But try and do the lot — Yours Bertie. Dear Chappie— l know well enough That you are non-existent-. But still we keep the fiction up, Although it's inconsistent. The merest kid is quite aware You do your work by proxy, Though to exhibit disbelief Is counted heterodoxy. I'm twelve years old ; my pace has now Considerable momentum, No flies on me ! Im quite "twencent," And so — verb, sapientum. May I suggest — a book oil bridge ; A year's sub. to the "Pink 'Un" Is abso-bally-'utely "it, (I took their tips for Lincoln And made a quid). A yesta-case, Hall-marked, but no initials, (It's worth a better price without From "Uncle's " cute officials). Hu!lo! There goes the dinner bell, So, as it's now or never, Guts in spot cash are comme il faut.

Leave yellow boys! Thine ever.

Sentiment is chiefly left for the old boys and girls ; and this sentiment is expressed in countless ways. Christmas in the streets might be spent by a millionaire very profitably to himself and the denizens of the pavements, and not in charity if the millionaire objected to pauperising. The long miles of curbstone merchants, tho?« hawkers of penny trifles would alone be worthy of study and expenditure. Not all vagrants, by any means they must earn their bread. Some are wastrals by nature, otbeis are vastnils through adversity, but all have Christmas horjes and Christmas appetites; and co stand on the curb day after day from the lamp-lit morning till the lamplit night is alone labour, and disciplined labour. The insignificance of their trade, the insignificance of th<jir wares, does not represvnt the strenuousness of will and the reality of purpose which holds them ill -fed to the cold pavement rtones. And had the London street-hawkers no other use, they point a tragic finger at the grim contrasts of a greit city and heighten the sense of well-being among the well-fed. The present- Lord Mayor, Sir William Treloar has for long been the friend of London's crippled children, and inaugurated that established charity of hampers for crippkd little ones which this year is in add-ed force. Although there are not so many sensational appeals for charity this Christmas as last, the need is as great, if not greater. The awful problem of feeding England's poor is never answered. And underlying the appeals, however restrained, is an urgency that is unmistakable. The hospitals are among the insittutions that ever win sympathy from women, and year after year hundreds of ladies vie with e.ich other in competing for the honour of having dressed the greatest number of dolls for the girl pati-ents. One lady alone, competing for the prize which Truth yeaily offers, dressed 700 dolls, the clothes being made to take off. That in itself means 700 pain-stiicken mites made glad. Is there a woman with soul so dead who never as a girl has said : " Give me a doll whose clothes Mill take on and off."

Canon Barnett, at Westminster Abbey, has had a word to say on the defects of charity. He says : —

The test should be, "Does this institution make men, women, a.nd children more able to work and more willing to love?" Forty years ago it nas thought that casual almsgiving 1 might be organised, and ero the Charily Organisation Society — the parent of modern scientific charity — was founded. In London now there were nearly 2000 institutions of different kinds spending nearly £6,000,000 a year. There were also workhouses, etc., which "cost nearly £4,000,000 a year. That went in support of what a coroner said . "Half the people seemed to be engaged in putting the other half into institutions " Was the management of such institutions as careful as that of private institutions? Was there overlapping? Was there competition rather than co-operation' Though nearly £10,000.000 a year was spent in London, no European town presented such a. suectacle of wietched-

ness as London. If philanthropic institutions encouraged laziness they were not worthy of God's kingdom. Philanthropic institutions had often the defect of pride. They resisted reform, and held to privileged service and the ' rights of property. Many had ihe pride of possession. When life iiL, an .-institution gave out it was sometimes k«ej>fc- in., by artificial means. The field «f charity '* was . obstructed by the corpses- of dead .institutions. Ten million pounds a- year ipent in London alone for charity must surely redeem, it from the charge of callousness ! There has been another sensation in Suffragette land — another bombardment of the House of Commons — with the result that four ladies and one man, their champion, who is termed as " Suffrager," will spend their Christmas in prison. Intense __ interest was tafcen • at the police court by the appearance of a man among the prisoners. A young man ; a champion of woman's cause. Is he an omen? j Police-Constable Thompson told the story j of the fracas. Simmon ds was outside the f House of Commons, running up and down the I enclosure. He was asked to remove himself. I "I won't," he shouted. "I'm. going in there," pointing to the House of Commons, and then he yelled, "Votes for women!" Witness I closed with Simmonds, who embraced him not only with out-stretched arms, but took a, sort of "grape-vine hold round the constable's legs with his legs, to the officer's great embarrassment. There was a lively strusgle. The women rushed to his rescue, Mrs Davis leading the way. She, too, was prom^'"apprehended. ' She threw her arms round my neck." said the constable, amid much laughter, in which Mrs Davis joined.