Show CHRISTMAS OB ERVANCES The Day of Peace Comes to High and to Low HOW ROYALTY CELEBRATES I I IiROIER SOLDIERS COMPELLED I TO EXERCISE INGENUITY i iI I I TILe Indians Partake of the Joy5j The TricUs oC the Street Gitmins Enviable Luxury of the Million alres Clirisjimas ConvictsThieves I and Tramps Enjoy It The Chinese Celebration Copyright and all rights reserved by Geoffrey Williston Christine Christmas comes but once a year I Is true but thank providence It comes that once to everybody high or low rich or poor millionaire or tramp king or beggar Even to those who have no turkey nor mince pie nor even where to lay their heada even to the poor little waifs ands and-s s of childhood who have no kind friends to fill their suspended stockings and bonbons or the sad with toys upon te sa dest heart and the poorest most blighted life It sheds something of that sweet feeling feel-ing of peace on earth good will to all mankind which I ushered into the world nearly 1900 years ago when a lovely baby boy was born away over In Bethlehem Bethle-hem and his beautiful young maiden mother cradled him in a manger Whether i be In all the warmth and light of the sttei mansion where the brightly blaz ing lires reveal through the window the preparation for a cosy dinner and from out whose massive portals all the children ef the house are running into the snow to meet their married sisters brothers cousins uncles and nuts and be the first to wish them Merry Christmas whether it be in the loneliest hut or hovel of mud and stone upon the bleakest moor where some aged peasant worn out by privation priva-tion and toil is singing a Christmas song whether it be up In the get light house built upon a reef of sunken rocks a league or more from some wild shore or aboard some mighty ship away out upon the bosom of the great ocean we shall find that the benelicient influence of Christ is felt and that every actor in these widely different scenes upon these strangev diverse stage no matter how old or lit w young how rich or how poor has hummed a Christmas tune or had a Christmas thought or spoken in a whisper of some bygone Chricstmas and the hopes belonging to i upon each recurrence recur-rence of that wonderful day when the Christ child came into the world But while the whole Christian universe keeps Christmas while even heathen nations have holidays closely resembling I in their observances and associations yet there is a wide difference in the manner man-ner in which Christmas is kept not b different and nationalities merely by dierent races natonaltes but by people in different stations and walks of life The Christmas of emperors and the soldiers Christmas kings the thieves Christmas the convicts Christmas Christ-mas the Indians Christmas the tramps Christmas the street gamins Christmas the millionaires Christmas the working girls Christmas the Chinamans Christmas Christ-mas and the Japanese Christmas for both the Chinamen and Japs domiciled among us though beathens keep our Christmas after a fashionpresent many points of salient Interest and emphasize more forcibly forci-bly than almost anything else in the life of each the wide social differences that exist among them cxlt tem ROYALTYS CHRISTMAS Emperors and kings can hardly be said t have much of a Christmas for the extra good cheer pleasure privileges and gifts which Christmas brings to most gft are enjoyed by them on every day In the year Before the downfall of the last French empire as we are told by one pf the empress ladies in waiting who has written a book about It Napoleon III and his Eugenie with their prime favorites sat down at the Tuilleries to fresh green peas strawberries and peaches every day in the year these luxuries being freshly plucked each morning from the vines and trees in the hot houses at Versailles What could you offer in the way of an extraordinary gastronomic treat on Christmas Christ-mas day to a man who has fresh green peas strawberries and peaches on al gee te other 3G4 days of the year together with all other things in keeping And then presents How could anybody hope to select a gift that would afford pleasure to a man or woman who is already supplied with every thing that a royal income wrung from a taxoppressed txpprese empire can afford and who values diamonds no more than YOU or I do cobblestones From even the greatest of all Christmas pleas ures that of presenting gifts thev are debared for we never know the real joy of giving i its highest best form unless our gift has cost us some selfdenial and what selfdenial in that way Is possible t sovereigns who have such a surplus surlus of every thing desirable that they are glad to give some of it away if ony to be rid gve and who can give presents every day in the year i they wish to Without ever feeling the expenditure THE SOLDIERS CHRISTMAS Very different is the soldiers Christmas Chrstmas Away out on the frontier miles away from any railroad in a lonely little fort surrounded by Indians our army officers and their wives have no long rows of elegant shops from whose great supply o holiday goods they may select gifts for each other and their little one gifs a well a for the dear friends they have left behind them in their far eastern homes They have no great array eter market stalls loaded down with poultry fish and game where they may purchase materials for the Christmas dinner For Chilstmas gifts and Christmas cheer they must depend entirely upon their own ingenuity But what a wonderful genii that same ingenuity sometimes is and what pretty things and pretty dishes he clten evolves out of seemingly nothing almost equalling In this respect the famous ous genii of Aladdins wonderful lamp In a little frontier post away out on the trackless plains of the far west where not a shrub or tree of any kind could be seen even beneath the scorching sun of summer I have known quite a respectable Christmas tree to be faked by splicing C together several walking sticks fasten ing them upright through a hjle in a soap box and covering them with green tissue paper from the post store where all sorts of odds and ends accumulate In the course of years The branches were formed by winding the central portion of porton long stiff pieces of heavy wire about the trunk formed a above and allowing their ends to project That same Christmas night we had a ball at the commanders quarters and everybody in garrison including in-cluding not a few Indians gathered around i our improvised Christmas tre xwhlch r seemed to afford a much delight t the oldest person present a to the fairy lUce 2 little maiden of five years the commanders command-ers daughter and the Idol of the fort for whom it had been fabricated te for THE INDIANS CHRISTMAS I shall never forget one Christmas dinner din-ner and ball which I attended many years i ago I was given to its Indian hunters p and trappers by the Hudson Bay company h com-pany that great commercial power tht r once practically monopolized the fur trade of the great northwest and it took place at what was then called Fort Erie on i the Saskatchewan river in the great te j uncultivated wilderness which gct the British possessions in North America which lies to the north of the Canadas and which i sometimes even now called the Hudson Bay territory or Ruperts Land What Juicy roasts of buffalo beef be tve bad what enormous buffalo steaks what delicious venison pastry and what glorious marrow bones not to mention r tongues and hearts and grouse and other similar viands How those Indians did eat The squaws a much a the men te It seemed a though they had engaged in eged n determined truggle to prove beyond future cavil the gastronomic supremacy of one sex or the other One old seeming ly toothless squaw ate and ate till to my alarmed vllon she seemed like the young aae Geeme Uee j won in alluded to by old Tony Weller in the Pickwick Papers to be swellin visibly afore my very eyes After the adult Indians had finished the little folks the papooses were turned loose on the fragments and soon no trace of the menu te 1enu a left Then came the bal Our only ladle were the squaws Indian women are not remarkable for beauty cleanliness or Brace poor things but they enjayed the ball just a much as any lovely dudine of fashionable society ever enjoyed lounging languidly through the lancers and German in shimmering sm c3 and sparkling diamonds They did their best to dance too Such dancing Thev seemed to have no joints but stood up stiff as ramrods and jumped awkwardly from eWe to side on the broad of their feetr a an Irishman would say Th only music we had was a pinewood fiddle with strings of deer skin sinew on which tome one tried to scrape time without I 4 t J = p I regard to tune while another beat upon jan jan j I I i j-an Indian drum The addle scraping be I ecame unbearable after a time and we I I finished the ball to the liquid notes of the drm TH STREET GAMINS CHRISTMAS I I The street gamins highest Ideal of i strt II spending Christmas is to pass both its 1 afternoon and evening at some variety afernoon theate Long before the hour for the doors to open great crowds of these little I fellows may be seen outside of every one ol these establishments waiting in a long 1 I line extending from the gallery entrance far up the street those In the front row having their noses flattened against the I I closed door by the pressure of those behind I be-hind They will thus stand shivering in I the cold for hours in order to secure a front seat The moment the door opens there is a pushing and crowding and I fighting and swearing that beggar description II i de-scription Each is determined to have a place in the front row I Hog do these boys get the money for their Christmas celebration By selling papers or blacking boots or working j I some ingenious jay with all the finesse I and Ingenious veteran crook On the j I principal thoroughfare of one of our largest larg-est cities on the day before Christmas i last year I saw a ragged urchin take up a piece of mudcovered bread from the j gutter and apply his teeth to it just a a 1 gter philanthropiclooking richly dressed old gentleman wa passing by I My poor boy said old Benevolence halting abruptly in his afternoon stroll I Are you hungry Yes indeed sir I haint had nuflin to eat all day I haint got noome nor no fadder nor no mudder I giU me livSn I in de streets You dont say so said the good old I man a he drew a hining silver dollar I from his trousers pocket and slipped it into the urchins grimy hand Take that and go and buy yourself a good hot I meal and the worthy old philanthropist resumed his walk his face glowing with the consciousness of a good deed done But the boy went around the block and on the next corner I saw him work his lay again on two fashionably attired ladies He was foremost in the crowd I noticed waiting outside a variety theatre for the gallery door to open on Christmas afternoon I TH MILLIONAIRES CHILDRENS CHRISTMAS I The merriest Christmas of allthe ne plus ultra of Merry Christmas unquestionably un-questionably enjoyed by children whose parents count their wealth by th millions and are therefore able to shower upon their little ones every thing that money can buy We cannot observe a typical I 1 Christmas of millionaire childhood than in the home of Cornelius Vanderbilt an erblt eighty times millionaire who carries a a i I I weight of wealth and complcated interests inter-ests that would seemingly make I impossible impos-sible for him to devote so much time as he I does to his children Of these William H Vanderbilt a lad I of eighteen years and the eldest comes home from boarding school for the Christmas Christ-mas holidays His brothers and sisters i with intervals of two three between i or years ni t lrgCc tveen them are Cornelius Vanderbilt rr I a handsome boy Gertrude a charming hazeleyed little maid Alfred a boy often i I of-ten Reginald aged seven and baby I Gads just budding into the rosiest type of fouryearold beauty These youngsters j I hang up their stockings in the big nursery I I on the corner of Fiftyseventh street and Fifth avenue Then when all are snugly tucked ur in bed papa and mamma arrange I I ar-range their Christmas tree and such a tree There is nothing that Kris Kringle St Nicholas Knecht Kupert Santa Claus I I and ail the other saints spirits and fairieo that preside over Christmas ever thought 1 I or read or heard or dreamed of In the way of anything that can add to the beauty and attractiveness of a Christmas tree that you cannot find on that one After the little ones have Ohed and I I Ahed and gone into raptures generally over their tree and gifts on Christmas morning off they go gfs the Christmas sng treat at St Bartholomews Sunday school j I in Madison i avenue where they are among the most regular attendants Then they i I come home to spend the day and evening in generl merry making with their numerous num-erous cousins or they are in turn entertained enter-tained by these same cousinsthe other little Vanderlts sons and daughter of their fathers brother William K and the little Shepards the little Webbs or the little sisters Sloanes all children of their fathers sistersTHE THE THIEVES CHRISTMAS Thieves keep Christmas much the same a honest people but it is by no means a holiday time to them Like actors who have to perform on both Christmas afternoon after-noon and night professional crooks work harder at Christmas than any other time The great crowds in the streets and shops present a golden opportunity to the pickpockets pick-pockets and the Christmas wares so lavishly displayed t the shoolifters The latter are the happiest of all crooks at Christmas time for then they reap their greatest harvest of the entire year When stores a crowded with holiday buyers and clerks are busy with hand and brain what is easier than to slip a piece of rich lace or a diamond bracelet beneath the friendly newmarket or into the large skirt pocket Stealing from shops at Christmas time is made so tempting and easy by the careless profusion with which holiday goods are displayed that many a woman ha thus been tempted to commit I her first theft THE CONVICTS CHRISTMAS In prisons where the inhuman solitary system is unknown the convict Christmas Christ-mas is not so gloomy as one would presume pre-sume I must be The pleasantest and best days of many convicts are those passed in prison From their birth maly of them have known only the cold wet shelterless midnight streets the foul and frowzy dens where vice Is closely packed and lacks room to turn the haunts of hunger hun-ger and disease and theshabby rags that scarcely hold together and surely to hese unfortunates the comfortable clothing the regular wholesome food the warmth and protection from wind and weather that a well regulated prison affords cl reglate prson afords must seem luxury even though paid for by the loss of personal liberty The state prison provides an extraor dinarily good r nfo for the convicts Christmas and in many penitentiaries an entertainment in which he is allowed a participate is given for him in the chapel I wa my rare good fortune on Christmas Christ-mas day 15S to be present a the ruest of the warden at an entertainment given J by the convicts in the Ohio state peni I tentiary at Columbus The performance entirely by convicts comprised musical and other specialties and ad speialies a sensation drama in which as a matter of course coure vice was punished and virtue triumphant And what a sight it wa to watch both performers and spectators A difficult violin solo wa well rendered by a blind man serving i a life sentence for murder The man who enacted the most virtuous character in the play had chopped off his mothers head when a boy of twelve years and his death sentence had been commuted to life Imprisonment on account of his youth The spectators almost received the vii lain in the play with hisses and loudly applauded the triumphs of the virtuous character After i was ail over an old convict who had spent threefourts of his life in prison said to the warden and my self In a voice quivering with suppress emotion My God What a Christmas this has been I Is the first ray of real sunshine that has come into my life for thirty years THE TRAMPS CHRISTMAS Tramps and kings are a good deal alike in keeping Christmas A trump cannot trmlJf make any more chance in his ordinary habits and customs in honor of ordina than can a king A man who keeps every day a a holiday by abstaining frm ever a labor can scarcely appreciate the vaule of Christmas as a season of rest and recreation True the tramp might ceJe brate Christmas by workin a little cele few tramps could survive the shock of so violent a method of observing it Still most tramps keep Christmas after a faith ion generally in some cheap lodging house displaying the legendary trans parency Lodging ten and fifteen cents fftee per night The most unique of all these places I strolled into from Ratcliffe place London one Christmas eve Two ropes extended the entire length of a Ion narrow nar-row filthy apartment Narrow strips of coarse bagging stretched across the ropes which were six feet apart and three from th2 floor comprised the beds No comprse les was furnished The price for covering wa furishe prie one or these bPs wa two pence four American I I cents per night At six oclock in the morning the ropes were let down and the lodgers suddenly awakened by coming sharply in contact with the floor Had this not been done they would have lain there all day and the lodging house keeper would have precipitated a riot j he had 1tempte to eject them but being thoroughly thor-oughly awakened by the letting down of the ropes they all got up and walked I wale quietly away to celebrate Christmas by eating one of those Christmas breakfasts or dinners which charitable people charItble provide pro-vide for tramps in various parts of Lon don THE HEATHEN CHINEES CHRISTMAS CHRIST-MAS Though the heathen Chinee and sops oi Japan domiciled among us have no faith In the wonderful story which is the foundation found-ation of Christmas they observe the occasion oc-casion as a day of general good feeling suspend business donning their silks and eking pleasure In China Dec IS Nov 29 in Chinese chronology Is 1 holiday similar i observance to our Christmas save thai parents receive hristma sve taI rets re present pres-ent from their children instead of malt Insr them to the latter ma Nov 9 is the principal holiday In Japan I is Flower day or the feast of the Chrysanthemums Flowers are given by i I all to all and are everywhere displayed I GEOFFREY WILL7STON CHRISTINE lI l I i I i a 1 q 1 t < > < |