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Show The Syrian New Year 1 )fSJLL the Christians of New M'$C$$w or d not observe tVA Christmas as a time for rW?y Santa Claus. The Sy roSry rians, for instance, who iffaaYaAft.,.isfl tye jn tne ower end of Manhattan island, in Washington street, from the Battery up to Albany street, have an old custom of giving heir presents on New Year's day. Then there also Is a difference in the manner of giving. The Syrian children chil-dren do not hang up their stockings. Neither do the parents disguise themselves them-selves as Santa. Claus. On the contrary. con-trary. The Syrian child invariably knows who is going to.be his Santa Claus, and consequently is treated to no extraordinary surprise. There Is one thing, however, ot which he remains re-mains in Ignorance, and that is the nature of the present he will receive. The child picks ou whosoever he thinks will treat him best in case he succeeds in meeting and greeting him at the proper time on New Year's day. Then comes a long vigil for midnight, as the custom so prescribes It that the one who offers the first greeting at the beginning of the new year shall receive a fitting reward from the one greeted. A good wish for success and prosperity In the first hour of New Year's day is held by the Syrians to augur well for the following twelvemonth, twelve-month, and the one who first wishes good prospects is entitled to a reward. Custom prescribes that at the time of this New Year's greeting whatever the one greeted happens to hold in his hand becomes the property of the other. oth-er. The one who receives the greeting: greet-ing: is supposed to oe so pleased with it that, acting upon the happy impulse of the moment, he hesitates not to requite re-quite his greeter with whatever he first can lay hold on. This latter custom cus-tom originated in feudal times, when the Emir, was onanist tent In his province pro-vince and his followers depended for their sustenance upon his gifts and what he allowed them of the plunders pf war.. Of course you can't nowadays sur- robes and having tall, magnificent figures fig-ures and flowing white beards and hair. At any rate, they always jwore white robes on New Year's day, for that was the day wher. they cut down the sacred mistletoe. i For the Druids didn't think that mistletoe was only p. pretty green vine. They believed It to be a miraculous mi-raculous growth hlch would prevent pre-vent people from being harmed by poisonous food or drink. On that day a particularly large, handsome Druid, with glistening white beard and hair and rather cold gray eyes DruUs always had cold gray eyes we believe and clothed irv our wild bells, To rke wld -Vy, Skc 'yir cloud, rke Jroffy liKT , 75Ueye&T is dyrJ? ir rubkT, ; !f our, wiU-belktwJ lef Kin die "Jcrryor. ; : i 1 prise any Syrian early New Year's day fooVng with a costly article. He can be depended on as knowing better, bet-ter, tor either he would have to make a gift of it to the one who first greeted greet-ed hi:n. or else he branded as a miser. Wise Syrians carry candy to band to the children who greet them. New Year's Day in the Long Ago KXJ33ONG years ago the people riSl wb0 1,yed ln a great many ifferent Pces In the !rtidrR$ world were very much fTTri interested In New Year's iuASJ day, just as we are. and Ihey did many things in honor of the day, exactly as we do. They Teasted' and decorated their ; houses and churches, and at 12 o'clock they were very particular to show in jome way that they were rejoicing that another an-other year had begun. Not all of these people celebrated New Year's on the same day. The ancient an-cient Romans used to have their New Year's day in March; then they changed to January, and a large part of the rest of the world followed them. The Jewish people have another an-other day and tho Chinese and Japanese Japan-ese still another, but whenever the day falls, according to their special calendar, there is always a, very Important Im-portant celebration of it Tho Druids, who were the priests of England before the Christian religion relig-ion was taken into Great Britain. alo celebrated New Year's day. They were very interesting and very strange people, these Druids, and. according to what one reads about them, in history, one always Imagines them i as wearing beautiful white most beautifull""-n white, y I J climb the oak tree .a which the , tletoe grew and cut idown wl Vjr golden sickle. He wouluvt take his hand, because they dlou'?-).; sider that respectful enough to the sacred mistletoe, which could do such wonderful things. Instead he would catch lt in a pure white cloth aDd climb carefully down the tree with it. After this an altar would be erect- J ed and white bulls sacrificed and j prayers ottered. Then the Druidlcal j community felt that for the tollowins j year they would have all the good ' j luck possible. You see ln those days New Year's celebrations were very serious things, j and all of the ceremonies attending them were religious. , , j Ringing In the New Yejjr Bp pleasant sounfc for j . j |