Show AMERICAS CHRISTMAS THE BEST OF ALLAn waw awaaa An occasional Jersey commuter familiar with the religious re-ligious section of Barclay street 1s 1 commonly the only sort of American in New York who known a prescplo by sight Yet the prescplo Is the sign of tho Latin Christmas Christ-mas as the fir tree Is of the northern Tho manger of tho Barclay street windows shows only the inside of tho stable with tho figures and tho cattle dono In Italian terra ter-ra cotta But tho rcul preseplo in Its native land may show the whole countryside as well and if tho pilgrims wending their way to tho manger are good Sicilian peasants peas-ants bearing good Sicilian wine and cheese on their donkeys they are only the more interesting St Francis born In the quaint little town ot Assisl among the brown Umhrlan hills In 1182 Invented tho presoplo to make tho Christmas story plain to tho slmplo illiterate common people During tho 800 years since it has remained a favorite devotion in Latin Europe Tho Italian and Spanish call it the preseplo the manger tho French tho creche tho cradle and the Hungarians and Belgians netlelm or Bethlehem Only a few years since not a carpenter could be hired In Hruw > r Naples or vpVf before fJirlstnms They woe nil busy erecting prcseplos In tho homes of the quality while tho poorer folk were constructing their own As tho mainland grows more sophisticated the quaint old devotion Is fading away but in conservative Sicily people still make tho presoplo every year as they 6 dress ChiUtmns trees in New York All over tho Island families are buoy from December 1 to 15 putting their old prcscplos In order or making new ones and there Is much calling to and fro to compare results and admire now and elaborate specimens of tho art Tho preseplo may be a little thing on n stand In ono corner or It may occupy tho whole side of a room It may represent n whole mountain side nmdo of the rough flexible bark or tho cork tree Peaks crags and precipices abound with winding trails houses rand castles of colored cardboard forests of twigs and sometimes tiny pipes to furnish brooks and lakes In tho center Is the grotto with the holy family within A sky of blue pa t per stretched above with tho Star of Bethlehem conspicuous z con-spicuous and over tho hills come the shepherds bearing the gifts to the babe Spain like Sicily has never lost tho prosoplo and In both Spanish and Sicilian cities there are booths for the sale of miniature shepherds magi and nil tho accessories of tho art In France tho creche is not made at home as In the southern countries but It used to bo n 1 part Of tho Christmas decorations of every French church and Is still so In tho rural districts Many a polished cosmopolite of Paris can remember working busily for days before Christmas In his childhood to help freshen up and rejuvenate reju-venate tho creche of his parish church In some little village vil-lage of Franco In tho villages close by Paris to day children chil-dren who go about tho streets singing Christmas carols carry a little creche in a box upon their shoulders Tho manger typifies the difference between the Latin and tho Teuton Christmas The Latin Christmas Is a purely religious festival as much so as any other feast of tho church It has no particularly domestic or social 1 so-cial quality Italian children never get presents on Christmas day That sis Ii s-Is done on All Souls day In October tj when they believe if they are vary small that tho spirits of their dt parted relatives havo como back 111 the night and left presents for them undoubtedly n very ancient relic of ancestor worship It is the great Teuton family of nations that give presents to children on Christmas day And tho Christmas tree came out of the vast forests where dwelt the heathen German and Scandlna fj 1 vlnn tribes It is In fact n pagan 11 1 relic passed down from primitive H forest dwellers and worshippers j Where Celt Slav or Latin use It j i they havo borrowed It iI France half Latin and half Colt dashed with Gaul and Viking Is a f family by herself In this as In everything every-thing She builds tho manner In the churches but at home though she i seldom dresses a Christmas tree little lit-tle DabettQ find Pierre tit tileic l shoes by the urepiaco instead ot their stockings Pierre and Babette If they hanging up J are very small Indeed believe that te petit Jesus or ie petit Noeltho little Jesus or tho little Christmas have brought the gifts But tho average Drench child I America and Pierre has to as young Is as sophisticated be a very little boy Indeed to believe In lo petit Jesus t No French or Italian child ever hears of Santa Claus till I ho comes to America by which it may bo gathered that f that good saint was strictly German and when he emigrated t emi-grated came to America like all tho rest of the Germans Ger-mans The growth of the typical American Christmas with its universal Christmas greens and presentgiving Is a curious t curi-ous phenomenon It has nq roots In American history J t Tho original settlers of New England never observed It ijj s The Dutch of New Amsterdam scarcely noticed it but 4 made New Years the great Joyous popular festival J Within the memory of old people still living Christmas j passed unobserved In Now York while all holiday merrymaking l mer-rymaking centered in Now Years day Modern America ai has built up a Christmas festival of Its own and has jjj rejected definitely the religious feast In favor of the social 5l so-cial and domestic one In ono way however tho Amerl J < c can Christmas is more religious tlmn any and all tho LatIn 3t Lat-In church feasts put together One who has lived through I a years changing round of saints days In Italy In all ot 18 which no work is done and tho people take holiday will ffl observe that the thought of the people never goes out to m thoso In need The abounding giving of an American 8 Christmas tho uneasy uncomfortable feeling that every fl child at least must have If possible a good dinner and a present on Christmas day Is quite unknown In the Latin ft Lat-In countries The feeling that poor old bums and hoboes even the a criminals In their prisons the paupers In their alms fj t houses tho beggars tho unworthyall ought to have I something good to eat on that day and a little Christmas jil Christ-mas cheer in some CormIs part of the American Christmas 1 Christ-mas itf mOBrbo The races that como to the molting pot of America Sj keep their homo Christmas for only a few years after r I they arrive Then they drift off Into a more or less Is Americanized Christmas fj For a few years after they come also they try to cat their traditional dishes at Christmas time The Hun J garlun housemother makes tho Christmas cakes which along a-long lino of ancestral cooks made before her across seas They are round balls of dough covered with honey and poppy seed and then baked The Bohemians and Poles also make poppy seed cakes each In a different stylo The Sicilian housewife too has a traditional Christmas cako It la a ring of dough with a hole In the middle the Italian doughnut In fact which a trial priijK > ri with sugar prd tn hot M n 0 i w |