THE KAIPARA AND WAITEMATA ECHO With which is incorporated "The Kaipara Advertiser & Waitemata Chronicle." Helensville, Thursday, Dec. 23,1915 THE FESTIVE SEASON

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 23 December 1915, Page 2

THE KAIPARA AND WAITEMATA ECHO With which is incorporated "The Kaipara Advertiser & Waitemata Chronicle." Helensville, Thursday, Dec. 23,1915 THE FESTIVE SEASON

ONCE again it falls to our lot to say a few words to our numerous readers on the aspect of the festive season, Christmas and the New Year being so close upon us, but it is not the intention of the ECHO to inflict a lengthy and useless discourse on the past year or to dole out a lot of balderdash on the prospects of the near future. You are well in health, have three meals a day, a feast in anticipation for Saturday (Christmas Day), with plenty of good cheer included, and high hopes for the coming year. What more? For those who have not the cheer and the hopes we feel sorry, though they do not belong to Helensville and the surrounding district, where everything is in abundance, cheerful and smiling —not one in want, and none in bad straits. So much for ourselves, now for the other fellow.

Farther afield things are different. The Kaiser'.s bloody war and threats are raging over nearly one-half the world. Tomorrow night millions of our allies will be blending their voices in sweet harmony, singing Christmas carols, both in the trenches, on the march or in the hospital. Gay as ever. And the next day will be Christmas Day. To think that at such a: season millions of men are slaughtering each other, when, according to the tenets of their belief they should be thinking of Him who came .on that day" to give the world a message from, on high, of peace and good-will to all men, seems out of all Christian reason. Yet it is so. It is Tommy's mission to slaughter—fight for his country and his King; to fight for " The Day," which one and all are striving to gain. And it is pretty safe to say that there is no fear of Britain withall her staunch allies losing "Our Day." We can only think of our brave boys at the front, and those whoa re laid away in a strange land, far from relatives or friends, with reverence ; and we think kindly of the boys who are wounded, some disabled for ever, others striving to get better and return again to action. May their shadow never grow less. It is pleasant to note in passing that none are forgotten, and that all will receive a full billy-can as a present for Christmas ; that our wounded, through the iiDerality of the masses, will be cared for now and for; all time. We wj;sh Qne and all, including our readers A Merry Christmas '•' AND '■■■■•-■"..' ■ A Happy New Year !