A CHRISTMAS MARKET

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 64, 18 December 1946, Page 5 (Supplement)

A CHRISTMAS MARKET

IN GOOD OLD ENGLAND

OLD-TIME PICTURE

Bellowing of bullocks, squealing of pigs, roaring of drovers, thwacking of sticks, and jangling of salesmen’s bells; lumbering bolt of a beast at your side, and screaming .scurry of pigs yonder; mud galore, and abundant good humour. So in .hours of hullabaloo the Christmas market is held, one might say waged, on the stones of the old square. Every inn-yard is choked with cars, gigs, and dog-carts. Every inn kitchen is preparing an ordinal y of more than usual sumptuousness. And as the hands of the Corn Hall clock approach the hour for eating every inn parlours fills with far fliers completing their deals, giving “Good health,” and writing cheques.

Men of a gay mind wear a sprig of mistletoe in their outtonholes. Youths fasten the frivolous berries in their caps, and here and there a merry-eyed wench displays a like symbol. The spirit of Yule is on the market. Fat beeves and porkers m the square have their Christmas complement in the fat turkey, geese and fowl in a range of pens along its side, the bartering of which proceeds in clamour of its own. By narrow ways through the old town the livestock began to gather in the early morning on foot and in tumbrils and waggons. About noon the backward stream becomes continuous, and it is slow going for anyvone on wheels. The streets aie full •of pedestrians. Bullocks break away -and scatter the crowd. Pigs dash from the stick and scamper back •over their tracks pursued by voluble ■■'drovers. ' : A