CHRISTMAS SALES IN GERMANY.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XV, Issue 886, 28 February 1907, Page 21

CHRISTMAS SALES IN GERMANY.

Germany’s traditional reputation for simplicity has, writes a Berlin correspondent, been swept away by the extent and extravagance of this year’s Christmas celebrations. Shops, everywhere, from the great emporiums in Berlin to the humblest corner grocery store in the country districts, report unprecedented sales. The widespread prosperity had loosened the country’s purse-strings, and in many families where simple lemembrances were formerly exchanged, such things as motor-cars, pianos, furs, jewels, stocks, bonds, and cheques have this year been scattered with a profusion entirely out of keeping with the German reputation for frugality. Unparalleled prosperity has blessed every class of the population. Statistics just published show an increase in the Prussian savings bank deposits in the past year of the largest increase on record. In 1870 the Prussian savings totalled ; to-day they amount to It was upon this enormous store of hoarded wealth that the great middle and working classes drew to give themselves a Christmas commensurate with Germany’s mounting national fortune.