NEWS BY MAIL

Hokitika Guardian, 5 February 1926, Page 3

NEWS BY MAIL

QUEUES AT THE TOY SHOPS. LONDON, Dec. 19. From just after the breakfast hour yesterday until three hours after dark the shopping streets of London were so thronged bv the columns, often seven and eight deep, of happy searchers for Christmas gifts and supplies that tbe non-shopper had perforce to take to the roadway. For once the “women’s mile” of Oxford-street, \Y.. was not a justified description; the slow parade past me windows, filled with a wealth of good things, included as many men as women. They were out not tor speculative shop-gazing but to buy. and to buy largely. Tlie toy shops were so crowded that buyers had to stand in queues outside, waiting to enter. Meat, game, fruit-, wines, and *‘the pudding” were all priced much more modestly than last year. Turkeys at Sinithfield Market _were so plentiful they far exceeded the demand. Last night the final batch of the Christmas'mails for abroad were dealt with by the Post Office, the postings for Gibraltar and Malta Iteing despatched. But there was no respite for the postal staff, which in London alone has been increased by 8,000. compared with S,OiX) a year ago. Tbe public lias accepted the advice to post early, and at the largest sortin-' office. Mount Pleasant, E.C., pare-ci-T are being handled at the rate of nearlv 100.000 per day. Already the Post Office has cleared 15 per cent more traffic than the report! it established twelve months ago.

It has sent out 47,000 bags of mail, whose contents approached 100,000,000 letters, postcards, and parcels.

THE HOUSEWIVES ART. LONDON, Dec. 10. A new type of L.C.C. school in North Kensington is finishing its first year’s work next week. Forty-five girls of 14 years of ago have been learning how to run a home as well a s continuing their general education for another year. Each day they have cooked their own dinners, which vary in price from 8d a head on Monday to Id on Friday. They have learned to cook with only the utensils they find in their own homes, and to clean with ashes,' sand, ant! home-made polish. They have learned how to measure with cups and spoons when no weights and measures are available. The have brought their own laundry to do at the school, and so that they should learn every kind of washing. father’s flannel shirt and tho ball’s clothes also. They have borrowed a baby so that they might dress and bathe it. but the trained nurse found that she had nothing to teach some of the girls on these points. One bad already taken care of nine babies, and slii? is only just over 14 years old. In the needlework classes the girls have made their own dresses, cut down other people’s clothes for children’s garments, dyed unbecoming old hats, and made the hangings for the flat which three girls ill turn run entirely by themselves for three weeks. They papered the sitting-room, stained and polished the floor, bought and made the curtains, and upholstered the chairs for an entire cost of 1.5 s