BUSY NIGHT IN CITY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 301, 19 December 1931, Page 1

BUSY NIGHT IN CITY.

Never-ending Crowds Swarm the Streets. PURCHASES FOR CHRISTMAS. Last night was the busiest shopping night in Christchurch for over a year. Shopkeepers were surprised and delighted with the amount of business done. People, crowds of them, everywhere, on the footpaths, streets and in the shops, moving in a never-ending stream, some driven by a purpose, others drifting aimlessly, in careless enjoyment of the moment. And the stream flowed through bright and glittering channels, blazing with electric lights, into all kinds of shops. Wise mothers heeded the advice blazoned forth from every shop window and shopped early to avoid the Christmas rush. Add to this the fact that it was also a Friday night and imagine the crowds that wandered up and down the lanes of shop counters. Those in the bookshops were varied in their actions when surrounded by the bright jackets of books on every subject and in every binding, novels, books of verse, travel books, cookery books. Some made their purchases with decision, pointed to a book, paid and watched the deft fingers of the shop assistants turn brown paper and string into a neat and intriguing package. But others turned over the pages with eager fingers, while the crowd streamed past, making up their minds whether they could afford such a purchase. Toys and Children. The stream branched off into the magic of a shop where toys were arrayed on all sides, to delight the heart of a child. And such toys. None of the lead soldiers, spotted horses and solid wooden engines of former days. Instead, aeroplanes, toy trains, miniature steam rollers, motor-cars and building sets intricate enough to make engineers of the dullest boys. And for the girls lifelike dolls talking with plaintive squeaks and walking with marionettelike jerkiness, tiny tea sets with cups to. hold a doll-sized drink, toy shops with scales and little canisters of tea and sugar and furry, yellow-brown teddy bears. The Inner Man. Plum puddings, mince pies and turkey had to be bought, of course, and thousands visited the grocers’ shops for the raisins, currants, candy peel, suet and other items of the housewife’s prize recipe. But the fare of England’s snowy Christmas is rather heavy in the light sunshine of a New Zealand summer, and the wise buyers of the stream wended their way to the fruit shops to spy . out the land in preparation for coming festivities. And in the fruit shops were all the colours of the rainbow. Rich, red strawberries, dark, juicy cherries, deep yellow oranges and speckled bananas. And exotic, even when compared with the oranges, were crimson pomegranates and green and yellow mangoes, specially stocked for Christmas. At last, after explorations into tobacconists for cigars for father, into stores for soap, scent and handkerchiefs for sweethearts and sisters, into haberdashers' shops for big brother’s ties, the stream flowed out as the shop assistants put up the shutters. Then trams and cars did the final business of a busy night.