MINCE-PIE ROMANCES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3275, 20 December 1916, Page 60

MINCE-PIE ROMANCES.

£25,000 FOR A DOZEN A YEAR I With the exception of the indispensable plum-pudding, no comestible of the festive season is more higfily appreciated than the mince pie. As the popular song has it, it is "snice, snice. snice"; and, although it may not be suspected, more than one romance has wrapped itself round this toothsome and always looked-for item in the Yuletide feast. For a number of years the writer was acquainted with a maiden lady whose life had been soured by an early disappointment in love. It was owing to this that she never married, and also developed such an unsociable disposition that of real friends she- had practically none at all. But she had a really inordinate affection for mince pies of the home-made variety, and a very sympathetic, though distant, relative, who was aware of this little weakness, as well as acquainted with the cause of her unlovely disposition, always remembered her at Christmas-time and invariably sent her a dozen mince pies of her own making. These were just as invariably eagerly looked for, and, although the recipient was never over-profuse in her thanks, she made up for all her shortcomings in this respect when she died. To the sender of the mince pies she bequeathed all her belongings, which amounted in value to between £25,000 and £26,000, as a mark of appreciation of her "kindly remembrances '' of the testatrix each Christmastide. In the last year of the nineteenth century there died at Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, a gentleman who was reputed to be the wealthiest man in tin town. He had lived and died a bachelor; and in the course of the preparations for tho sale of his furniture and effects a curious discovery was made at his residence. Amongst other interesting relics of by-o-one days the porters and cataloguers came across, in a very artful hiding-place, a hermeticallv-sealed box, made of tin. On this being opened it was found to contain a coup'le of mince pies, which had been made for the deceased by his mother shortly prior to her death, a quarter of a century before. _ One of the pies was in good state ot preservation, despite its 25 years, but there was nothing to show why they had been 8 o carefully stowed away. There must have been some object in it—even if it was only to demonstrate that nobody could make mince pies like mother's. \ different kind of romance attaches to some mince pies which were some time ago found in a box cast up by the sea on the Lancashire coast during a great storm. The box was evidently pari, of the wreckage of some hapless vessel which had gone down during the gale. Amongst other things, it contained a note in childish handwriting, " Wishing daddy a very merry Christmas and a hapjy New Apparently the box had belonged to the captain or some other member of the crew, and had been packed by loving hands so that "daddy" should not be short of seasonable fare when the festive season came round. Truly a sad romance of those that w down to the sea m ships and transact their business in deep waters. How verv dear both to the heart and stomach mince pies can be w-as shown in a ca«e heard one Christmastide in a -New York police court. The complaint of the prosecutor was that the prisoner had appropriated to himself and actually consumed a quarter of a large mince pie which had been made and baked foi the prosecutor by the wife of his bosom. 1 He felt so hurt at the loss of the pie, although its value did not exceed one shilling that ho refused to settle the case except upon payment by the delinquent of heavv damages. . , „ This was surely a flattering tribute to his wife's abilities as maker of mince pies; but, having regard to the fact that the prisoner was at the time of his raid on the pie a guest in the prosecutors house, it seems the height of inhospitality to have charged him with such an offence. However, he not only did so, but was mightily indignant when the magistrate declined to send the guest to prison.