STRATFORD.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LV, Issue 14095, 29 December 1909, Page 7

STRATFORD.

{From Our Resident Agent,)

„ Dec. 27* — Christmas comes but once a year. Perhapf It is not altogether a matter for regret that the festi* Y«l is not of more frequent ocourrenoe, and there are people, not wholly misanthropic, who wouW not regard as an irreparable misfortune its <fiiappeararipe from the calendar altogether. I am referring, of course, to Christmas as 4 secular holiday, and as such, if the pfoa and cons, are fairly set out, I doubt very muoh whether the balance of argument would incline decisively in favour of its retention in its present form. It comes at a most inopportune time of year, when all the great industries of the coufltry are in full swing, and when the wowser's time ii.at its maximum value. It's unfortunate proximity to New Year's Day encourages a tendenoy to make semiholiday of the intervening week, to the further dislocation of business. The strange hallucination that at this time attacks great masses of the people, that their happiness depends on their putting as great a distance as possible between themselves and their ordinary places of abode, causes a demoralisation of the railway traffic and a pruel strain upon the energies of all connected with the carrying business by land or water. The strain upon shopkeepers and their assistants. for .the few days preoeding Christmas is very great, and the extra business they do is counterbalanced by the dull time that always follows the annual carnival of prodigality. There an, happily, indications that the overeating and excessive consumption of alcoholic fluids that for many oenturies have characterised the festival, are on the wane, but these follies still exist and are followed by the inevitable penalties. There are other minor miseries of Christmas time, suoh as the "waits." whose doleful strains were particularly lugubrious and . exasperating in the small hours of Qhrisimas morning at Stratford^ this year. On the other hajnd, Christmas is stfll the season of kindly greetings, which,' conventional though they may have become, have befiind them kindly feelings ,tnat # at other times do not find expression. Then the profusion of good things in the home leads to generous thoughts for others not so well endowed, thoughts sometimes translated into deeds. It is the time for relatives to renew old associations that might otherwise lapse. In short, the humanising forces are at their strongest at Christmas time, and on the wholft prevail ovor tba bestialiaing forces that are unhappily also at their height. To hold on to the former and to take every opportunity of discouraging the latter is the way to "keep {Jffird emptied iteelf on New ' Plymouth and Eltfiam to-day, and the, town was like Tadmor in the wilderness so far as life was in evidence. The gale of Christmas Day and the following night did some misohief tp our gardens, and the accompanying 10% temperature caused everyone to light fires and gather *ound, onite in the Old Country Onristmas fashion.