CHRISTMAS CONTRASTS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLL, Issue 13305, 14 February 1914, Page 10

CHRISTMAS CONTRASTS.

Christmas seems to. tie 'the time when one gets the most vivid impression of the contrasts of London. The London correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald Avrites m superlative and almost with aAve, of tlie mighty Christmas shopping. The- Christmas trade of the six Australian capitals, put . together, Avould bear only a "fractional resemblance" to this '"colossal spectacle." One shop despatched 300,000 parcels, another took £10,000 m one day at one counter, and another served 100,000 persons daily for Aveeks. "The sight offered by any one of London's toy centres at Christmas is beyond description. The devices set tip for attraction, the queues of people clamoring for' admission, the struggling throng of those Avho have won precarious foothold, may be imagined m respect of hundreds of thousands of people all m search of toys at one time. Their price varies with your locality of purchase. At Harrod's, toys at twenty or thirty pounds a-piece have a ready sale. At the toy-fair on the kerbstone of Ludgato Hill is a. Avonderful variety of goods at a penny each." Post Office statistics testify to the immensity of the Christmas trade. In normal times the strength of the London postal force 13 24,000; this Christmas 10,500 additional men had to be employed. The contrast m toys suggests the grimmest contrasts of the season, that ; between the shoppers and the people who cannot afford to shop, «.nd -when 6ne. turns to the figures of charity LonddtiV size is again revealed, b4t this time m conjunction with poverty. The ' Salva? tion Army fed 50,000 persons, the "Rakged (ScHool : Union' „60;000, the Church Army 12,000; "atid halt a dozen other institutions .35,000 between them. Those, of course, Avere only a f eAV of tlte societies working among the ptfpr, and besides these there was the^, individual effort that the season always 1 calls forth. Everything possibly wijs done ny organised effort to see that every home that' would otherwise haA.% been comfortless had something substantial to mark Christmas.- /li___