THE HOLIDAYS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 78, 26 December 1907, Page 4

THE HOLIDAYS.

With the-passing ■of Christmas the holiday season has properly begun, and for a week or two the graver concerns of life will, -for.-the majority of the public, be subjects of little or no concern at all. - The crowds that filled the'city. on\.Tuesday niglit, in light-hearted celebration of the holiday that comes but'once a year, ahd ; comes with no diminution of.its unique, charm, would have led an observer ignorant of our society to conclude that there'would minority left to conduct the business.'; It. is always difficult to make comparisons, of the kind—since the only .'basis for com-' p'arison is the series of vague mental impressions of past Christmas seasons —but it to be generally agreed that the popular celebration of the holiday has been more nearly universal in 1907 than in any present year. The crowds have been- larger, and tradespeople generally have good words to say of the "holiday, business" this year. The inference, that seems most naturally to be drawn from the buoyancy of the public's humour is that the Dominion must be highly prosperous. The country is indeed prosperous, and we trust that'it may i continue so, but it is questionable whether even the pinch of straitened fortune would restrict the public's celebration of a holiday for which ■• provision is always made some months in advance.

: This is no season for gloom, or for fateful warnings, ,and we are.reluctant to appear in the role of a killjoy, but there are some counsels' of prudence that we would offer to a public which, experience has .shown us, grows so careless in its holiday-making -as to suggest that Christmas to the : ordinary man nieans a suspension of the laws and risks .of nature. Half the world will be busy with picnics during the next fortnight, and, unless they surprised into a moment's reflection, the picknickers will probably be as careless as ever in neglecting to take precautions against originating bush and grass firesl One other danger of the holiday season is well known in newspaper As soon as the hot season fairly begins, the newspapers expect a regular Supply of.telegrams reporting • drowning fatalities throughout the Dominion, and their expectations are unfortunately never falsified. With such regularity do the careless bather and the careless boatman swell the death-roll every midsummer that this warning would almost seem superfluous. The roll of fatalities is made up of individual recklessnesses, of individual forgetfulness, that is to say, of the need for unsleeping caution in every: dealing with the river or the sea. " Stevenson has declared that no healthy yachtsman ever "ties the sheet," even although every, sane- man knows the peril of this universal practice. If, therefore, we may intrude upon- the holiday spirit with advice, we would suggest a trinity of mottoes: "Blow out your matches; hold your sheet; and be sure of your depth." . . '