Show by LOUISE M COMSTOCK IME was when the job of santa clausing was a snap twelve months supervising the jolliest jol liest of elves in the manufacture of a standardized line of toys and then a romantic evening whirling a picturesque whip over willing donner and boltzen visiting friendly cottages with wide welcoming and capacious fireplaces stuffing sturdy stockings with wooden dolls rubber balls and sugar plums to fill in toe heel and extra corners A mere nothing in those golden days even the responsibility of distin between the neatly darned sock of good brother ben and the ragged one of that rascally very few little boys but were good and deserving of sugar plums and easily pleased when father was a boyl but changing times ushering in steam heat kitchenettes with only two windows on a court yard and a ventilator on the corridor to accod aouate the rotund saint chiffon hose and a universal slavery to the great god style have put santa in the big business executive class today we make him annually responsible for designing constructing and distributing some worth of toys all with a nice als crimination between the good and the poor a careful consideration for childish tastes and correct application of changing styles children s playthings always imitating the po sessions cessions ces and tools of their elders have thus nat brilly from the very earliest times followed closely upon man kinds changing whims and fancies the dolls unearthed in egyptian tombs are made of wood and sometimes have movable arms and legs but they all show that stiffness and emphasis upon the profile view characteristic of egyptian art early african dolls with out heads were given to children of the faith for their religion forbade the reproduction of the human feature among the toys of early persian children we are not sur presed to find many animals tigers with movable heads crocodiles whose ion er jaws work up and down lions of limestone on wooden wagons tor the owner to pull about or a carved hedgehog on wheels roman children placed with two wheeled carts like the chariots in which their public heroes raced toys during the middle ages if we are to judge from the few preserved for us included knights mounted on horses modeled in clay and slender ladles of terra cotta modeled in the elaborate costumes of the period painted in gold and brightest hues it Is the mechanical toy perhaps which shows most emphatically the influence of present day tendencies on childrens playthings from the tiniest tin automobile that winds up and darts furiously a few feet across the floor to the 1000 mechanical wonder which succeeds by means of springs and electricity to simulate exactly a real cat or a whole circus parade in action the purchase usually so toy dealers tell us of rich grandparents and uncles who wish to wind up the cat and watch the circus themselves these toys employ every invention of modern science and they keep pace also with current interests toy counters today are crowded with manla ture motion picture cameras and projectors come of them capable of carrying feet of film and all of them so they are advertised easily managed by a twelve bear old A few seasons ago when a transatlantic flight was etall novel enough to commend a streamer head line la all the newspapers the mechanical airplane was in high demand and toy golf equip ment or indoor golf games dominated in the toy chore at the same time that miniature golf greens began appearing in every vacant lot today mechanical racing automobiles and toy zep pellas are supplanting the airplane in larity and automobile or horse racing games and football are crowding out golf in indoor games carry car trucks with a detachable trailer capable of transporting four small models and delivery wagons stocked with popular trade marked wares leep this type of toy up to date while real mothers must be content with babies upon whom current styles in curly or hair blue eyes or brown have no influx ence one to ten year old mothers can be much more cular for styles in dolls change yearly it elems in grandmothers day all dolls were quite grown up the youngest of them being prim young ladles in panta lettes and artificial curls the baby doll simulating real baby Is a comparative para tive newcomer and even it haa suffered periods of more and less popularity with chang ing juvenile tastes in 1029 the flaxen haired beauty with the baby face languished unwanted on the toy counter while the flapper doll with dark bobbed hair natty clothes and a complexion modishly sun tanned found a happy home this year thanks to the empress eugence was who revived in us a taste for things old fashioned and sweetly feminine ceils dimples long lashes and frilly wardrobes are in again and baby dolls 1 little daughter has apparently given up dreams of a career and requests of santa claus for this christmas noth ing more modern than a doll s house to keep in order and a realistic baby doll to be loved and nursed and dressed and redressed her dreams of miniature domesticity are also it seems more elaborate and thorough going than those of grandmother to whom the doll itself was all sufficient they include a ready made ward robe for what up to date little girl Is going to slave over a toy sewing machine even an dec trie one or prick her fingers with a grown up needle what with the grand and the bar gain prices of read to wear dolls clothes and they include also electric ranges that really cook carpet sweepers or better yet vacuum cleaners thit really clean A very different type of doll but one also indicating the influence of current tastes even on children s toys Is the caricature doll stuffed and painted to represent characters already fa mallar through the talking pictures popular juvenile books or widely read comic strips and y COMING J km is coming I 1 t ans kengle is coming ans kengle is coming to town i i he wears a b g pack on the top of his back and looks like a funny old clown now wait a minute t S III tell what is u it i then won t your eyes sparkle with joy I 1 Y there s something with curls for good little BUIS BU IS and something as nice for each boy there are blaxon haired dollies and all sorts of follies to please 1 atle folk christmas dayt there are gay horses prancing and daudy jacks dancing and everything fitted for play 1 n from ans s chin hangs a plenty 0 tin J tin trumpets and watches and drums noah s ark painted red A little dolls bed I 1 and sold ers with very big drum from out of his pockets hell take sugar dockets lockets I 1 and candies alt red white and blue and there will be kisses t for nice 1 atle misses and sweetmeats sweet meats in plenty tor you S aunt clara in the Nur tery january 1870 y L li S sunday supplement funnies mickey mouse a foot high and true to the original to the last whisker may not inspire a young owner with spasms of mother love but who would refuse a celebrated movie star warm welcome into the doll family circle thus mickey moue and arazy kat and the rollicking bimbo as well as the entire aesop s fables gang done up neatly in black velvet and nine members of our gang modeled in bisque and waiting for their owner to paint them as they should be tinted are important newcomers in the doll world orphan annie and and smithy are among a number of comic strip celebrities reproduced as dolls this year rose Kew ples done up in flesh pink plush make a cuddly corn pinion for baby s crib and from juvenile altera ture have been borrowed A A milnes funny little bear winnie the pooh featured in a num ber of toys this year and the whole raggedy family from raggedy ann down ask anybody who has outgrown childhood just which toy he remembers with the greatest satisfaction and you will find nine cases out of ten that it was something very simple a abet of A 6 blocks a rag doll or even something which he made himself out ot spools or tin cans the real pleasure afforded by this type of toy persists in spite of mechanical wonders and layettes lay ettes in which everything from nursing bottle to safety pins is provided psychologists however have brought it up to date and now present us with the term activity toys and point out anew the eternal value of the plaything which makes the child the actor rather than the spectator which demands youthful ingenuity calls forth infant imagination exercises childish brains and muscle thus we find always in style all outdoor games and playthings from the good old bat and ball to a seesaw see saw so constructed that it takes only one child to operate it and teeter up and down without the peril of a sudden bump when the partner at the other end dis embarks thus also the permanent appeal of tool boxes paints and blocks of clean paper pencil boxes modeling clay building blocks or any of the elaborate construction outfits by which the youthful engineer may build bridges and skyscrapers to his feirt s content and thus the demand predicted this christmas for cowboy boots or toy revolvers in a holster on a wide belt by which the small boy Is suddenly meta cd from the terror of tha fifth grade to a hero of the western plains modern child psychologists have also addad impetus this beir to the sale of toys classed as educational instruction cloaked as amuse ment like a sugar coated pill may now be pleas antly administered in any number of playthings when the instruction Is for the very young the educator moreover prescribed toys that are durable under normal handling and above all absolutely hygienic no more fragile dolls which the lusty infant will more than likely crush with its first ecstatic hug no more blocks from which the bright colors may be sucked by any agres sive baby or metal toys with sharp corners or cutting edges there is of course some educational advantage in giving a delicate piece of mechanism to an older child especially if care be taken to impress upon him its proper care and use for the child whose tastes are already clentry developed to be evident the christmas shopper may choose from cut out puzzles corn posed of hundreds of fascinating colored mocks cut out with a jig saw which one labors to fit together and lo 10 Is rewarded by a lovely map or a famous masterpiece of painting I 1 there are sets of chemicals done up in vials and boxes with directions for combining them to produce some of our commonest chemical phenomena and construction sets by which the boy Is taught the principles of the cantilever bridge or of modern step back architecture and electric transformers which urge their possessor to make his own electric tos games whether they profess as many of the newer games do to be of educational value or merely claim to amuse all nevertheless hive a certain tendency to quicken the mind and eye to train the muscles in automatic response moreover games have this year attained a tain definite style appeal through the present popularity of adult gamce the fact that grown ups are playing them has this year lent new attraction to many of the simplest of ahll drens games and made game pl in itself a and interesting thing to do just when and why the current rage for adult games commenced nobody seems to know some says it Is the result of the vast interest people as a whole take today in outdoor sports when the baseball and football foot bill season Is over and it Is impossible to take the weekly work out at golf or tennis what more maural than that people should resort to their own indoor games in their own homes perhaps officials of the large steamship companies who have popularized their cruises by filling in the long days of water water everywhere with deck tennis shuffle board and table games in the smoking rooms anro responsible at any rate last winter people in search of amusement broke away from standard auction bridge through contract became a dangerous rival and first thing we knew pool tables appeared in the basement tennis tables in the attic guests were given their choice between bridge and club par chesl and the larger department and sporting gooda stores installed flourishing adult game sections this consequently will be a christas Christ mS of many games children and elders alike will drag out such old time favorites as flinch and authors or amuse themselves with the familiar electric questioner they will familiarize sem selves with famous events in history by a new game based on the history of mankind of loon and KO into convulsions excellent tn civo a heavy christmas dinner over an imported Import imported Jd game called sorry by t A I 1 A V |