Christmas Boxes.

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 574, 28 December 1889, Page 4

Christmas Boxes.

" Changed !" exclaimed old Green, " I should think Christmas has changed. Why, inany's the time I've heard my dear old father tell how, years ago, when he and Aunt Mary were children living on their father's farm, the least little present used to delight them. They were well to-do people, too, the Greens were ; but to find one book or a shepherd's pipe iv his Christmas stocking would make father perfectly happy when he was a boy ; and his sister thought a box of sugar-plums or a new doll, or some pretty gimcrack, was a joy indeed. Why, I'm told that a ' boy of the period ' would consider himself a much-abused fellow if he didn't find on his Christmas tree a ball, a six-bladed knife, a scientific top, a box of carpenter's tools, a. bicycle, ice skates, roller skates, Punch and Judy show, a telephone, a steam-engine, a microscope, a steam-boat, a railway train, a box of parlour^ magic, a pistol, a performing acrobat,' a! rj&]| watch, a gold scarf -pin, gold cuff buttons, twjfeiit^; 1 or thirty books, a pocket- bopk with • gold mqiisy : \ in it, besides a pair of kid gloves, v I .may have:, forgotten something," addled: : he, wiping his brow, ' ' but,; as ■ f ai? ; as I; make ' ojit, , that's -the pi?, ■a.bby ; no^ada^|i^^ ?-v.^j

It is pleasant to \walk along the street and have men wish you a I* Merry Christmas," wheo you know all the time Ihat your wife is fhreatening to present you witp twins on or albbut th& festive time. | . r When a young man of Japan falls in love with an almond-eyed beauty, he ties a branch of mistletoe to the door of her house. If such a custom were in vogue in this country, every house in town that contains a marriagable daughter or two would look as if it were getting ready to decorate for the festive Christmas holidays. '• John," said a loving wife, " I suppose we will have a turkey for Christmas dinner ?" " No, dear," was the reply, " we cannot afford it." " I thought not ; but I'll make the neighbours believe we had. I'll open one of the bed ticks, take out a few feathers, and scatter them round the yard." A new disease called bundle paralysis has broken out, and is expected to become pretty virulent just before Christmas. It attacks & business man whose wife has been shopping and has ordered the purchases to be left at his office in the expectation that he will bring them home at night.