"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2813, 12 February 1908, Page 75

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially Written for the Witness Ladies' Pag©.)

ST. STEPHEN'S, OR BOXING, DAY.

To-day is the wide-world holiday following the greatest festival of Christendom. The term "Boxing Day" had, it is said, its origin in the fact tliat in olden time boxes in which money had been collected for the poor and boxes which contained Christmas presents were presented on this day. Pearson's says : — Another origin of the title is that said to ba derived from the fact that bcates were at one time kept on board every ship bound on a journey of any distance, the said box being ready to receive gifts of money for the priest, ■who was supposed in return to say masses to the particular saint in charge of the boat for the safety of its passengers and crew. These boxes were never opened until the return of the vessel, and nrnst often have contained a realiy valuable offering. The mass which was said for the ship was called a Christmass, and. naturally, the boxes kept to pay for its offering were called Christmass boxes. The poor folk amongst those who had an interest in the ship were obliged to beg alms fronj the rich wherewith to provide their offering. Relics of these ancient boxes may be found ir old churches ; and, again, in various parts of the country they, or their modern counteiieits, are carried from door to door by servant? or chi'dren, begging money for their Christmas outings. But whatever the origin of the day, as things are at present constituted it is a day upon which one works unwillingly. Most people have some little personal matters on hand at Chiistma&tide, and there is the magnetism ot communion in the air that makes the isolated task irksome. But time and tide wait for no man, and the mail closes to-morrow, and if this letter is to be written it must be written to-day, whatever the origin of the day's meaning may be. Many traditions during two thousand years have passed into the oblivion of forgotten things, but the most hallowed ard joyous time 01 the Christian year seems to take new birth with every year, and the "goodwill towards all men" which has been always its ehiefest message, two thousand times told has lost nothing of its significance. The weather for several days preceding Christmas was dull and foggy, but on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day it cleared, which was especially fortunate for London, for the traffic in a. "London particular" at this season of the year is a hopeless confusion. . Fifty-two millions of postal communications is estimated as the Christmas budget at the Genera] Post, Office : 600,000 parcels despatched in an hour! At the great sorting departments thousands of extra men are put on to grapple with the Christmas mail, which grows larger every year. The Daily 'Mail says : — Five thousand vans, bearing Christmas mails, entered and emerged from Mount Pleasant yesterday, and special platforms ■were erected to deal with the thousands of bags of letters which they deposited and ••ollected. The sorters embarked upon a rr.ee £ gainst time — a race in which the goal ■".".".s the adjustment of the various prorasses, so that the incoming letters were f'ealt with before the time came for the <•: -matching of those outgoing. lie foreign mails despatched have been c:..sptionallj heavy, the majority being g'-eatly in excess of last year. One steamer :rom Australia bore 11,000 parce s — three times a-s many as were dealt with last year — while a mail boat foi Capetown left •with nearly 10,000 parcels m board. The regular staff at" Mount Pleasant have found it necessary, des-pite the additional men employed, to work in 12-hour sliifte, instead of eight, as is tht general rule. Throughout London 7000 " extra men, ' doing duty as assistant postmen and soiters, have been engaged, and have worked :ontimvously under heavy pressure Theie has been a record Christmas exodus. The %veather held good, and at 1 io eleventh hour the railway superintenents were astonished to find they had . > duplicate many of theit late trains <-i"the main lines. A stranger to'Lon- . Ip might have asked if the whole city ->.vre emptying itself, foi at the chief teri..ini great crowds and tons of luggage li id to be disposed of, for hundieds of Thousands were hastening away from London. Most of the principal firms closed from the Christmas Eve till the fol'owing Monday, giving five clear days' holiday, and this Christmas has been notable as a "hotel Christmas," both at the seaside resorts and in London. The popularity of the hotel Christmas as opposed to home celebrations is attributed by a London manager to the fact that Londoners more and more, as the yeaas go on, are lesirous of change, and perhaps in more need of it. The business man and his family find more complete relaxation away from home. They book rooms at a seaside or country hotel, and when they arrive they find a cheerful ready-made Christmas awaiting, without -great expense and no trouble, on a much larger and more comprehensive -scale than :n their own hoire ; dances and dinners and entertainments, all arranged foi the grownups, and Christmas trees, etc.. for the children, all the guests making one convivial party in the house-party style, and the charm and change of meeting strangeis is itself, a great . relaxation. In London, too, r many wealthy people, Instead of giving Christmas parties under their own roof, give them nowadays at some fashionable -hotel, and often with a more choice menu than the home chef could have prepared,' and frequently in novel surroundings, for in honour of thedr guests the hotels are elaborately transformed from their usual appearance .to suit the occasion. - One this year is made, on entrance, to represent the old-time roadside inn, with its red-faced host in the ancient tap-room welcoming the guests. Another is the transformation oi the palm court into a landscape of snow.

But the Royal Family set the timehonoured example of an old-fashioned

English Yuletide : the family gathered under the home-roof tree and round the home fireside. Their Majesties, as is their custom, spent Christmas at Sandringham, the Prince and Prinoess of Wales and their grandchildren their chief guests, devoting themselves, like thousands of other grandparents, to making the childrenhappy. Prince Edward — home for his holidays — Prince Albert and Princess Mary, on their way to church from York Cottage, with their father, called at Sandringhain to give their royal grandparents their little gifts. Then came church for the whole family ; then the family dinner and the Christmas tree, which was in the ballroom, a glittering centre of attraction of light and colour. Nothing could be more typical of the British home life than this royal Christmas — the plum pudding all aflame, the mince pics and crackers, the Yule logs blazing on the hearth, the carol music and the personal sifts. And before the personal gratification the care of the poor. The King and Queen, the Prince and Princers of Wales, and the royal children were all present on Christmas Eve at the distribution of boef to those upon the Sandringham Estate, and to the old women and widows her Majesty made personal gifts of shawls and flannel garments.

The Christmas charities have been on a more tremendous scale than was anticipated. At midnnight on Christmas Eve the work of the Salvation Army began. Eight hundred homeless were gathered from the Embankment alone, and received a basin of hot soup and brend. with a ticket for a night's shelter. One of the Salvation Army workers said: — "I think it now safe to assert that on this Christmas Day no man, woman, or child in London need go hungry," declared one of the most experienced of the army slumworkers yesterday. "Sufficient provision is made for all, by ourselves and other agencies. But times are very bad, and things are going hard in many homes." In the various halls and shelters the aTmy workers calculate to give fully 8500 a Christmas dinner. At some of the shelters, where a nightly fee of 2d is charged, several old men have been so afraid of fal.ing short of their money that they have been saving a halfpenny at a time and leaving it with the shelter captain. The chiefs of the Salvation Army declare that the most deserving cases are found not so much in the people who come to the shelters as in those they seek out in their homes. "The most heart-breaking oases of all will not approach the shelter doors," one officer declared. It is for this purpose that the 'slum lassies' are at work, bodies of young women living together in groups and spending their days going from alum to slum, room to room Yesterday, from early morning to late at night, they hurried round to make Christnvi-s cheer, tending a bedridden old here, scrubbing the floor somewhere else wheTe the mother was ill, giving a package of groceries there. I append a description of Christmas Day at the great London Hospital, which s a fair sample of the festivities in all the other hospitals, where all the staff enter into the spirit of the occasion, and endeavour to give the sufferers under their care as happy a time as their condition will allow. Indeed, many of the patients never bad such jollity in all their lives. The plaintive sob of violins, heard as from a distance, playing the opening bars of "Hark, the herald angels sing, violins followed in a few moments by a chorus of rich treble and contralto voices; violins and voices drawing nearer until the darkness of the waid was faintly illumined by swinging lanterns borne by a p-rocession of nun-like forms — forms disappearing, voices and vio.ins giaduallj dying away until there was again darkness. . In this beautiful manner was Christmas morning ushered in at. the London Hospital. Small wonder that many a fever-tossed patient, after the procession of sisters and nur.=es had passed on to the next ward, thought he had been dreaming. This was at 4 am. Five hours later Father Cnnstmas (the kindly senior resident Dhvsicisn). accompanied by his clowns (hou3e staff members) and fairies (convalescent children), began his round There were over 800 in-patients at the hosr-ital. and evary mxvn, woman, ard child received a useful present. The gifts were furnished by bit Edgar and Lady Speyer. Several days before the sisters and curses had canvassed the wants of each patien*. Amid gurgles oi delight from the children and exclamations of pleasure or embarrassed thanks from the men and women, the packages were opened. The gifts were of the most serviceable variety. Cardigan jacket?, shirts, or stout socks tor •the mer, flannel petticoats for the women, waim underclothes or tinj gaiters for the child -er. — these were fair samples. At midday turkey and plum-pudding were served .n the wards. It was a delightful'y cheery spectacle — bed-ridden patients m their red flannel nightzowns making light of their ;or.dit:Qii, and the nurses standing to ea; their own hunied dinnei in the centre. At the Christmas dinner there were consumed in edibles alone: 11201b of finest Christmas turkey. 6401b of best p!um-puddmg. 4701b of bread". 3361b of potatoes. 168. b of greens. For this one day in the year smoking was then permitted in ihe wards Fruits and sweetmeats, provided by various firms, weie distributed. At 3.30 the entertainments began. Half-hourly "turns'* were given in all the larger wards for four hours. Instrumentalists, niggers, singers. Punch and Jtidy. and the " llio-Tibial Band " of 20 resident doctors evoked the delight ci patients and nurses alike. Many a pain-twisted face relaxed into a smile before the entertainments were over. Children's wards stowed Christmas trees heavily laden with presents. The expenses of the entertainment were all defrayed from a special fund to which Mr Leopold de Rochschild, various members of the house committee, and other friends of the hospital contributed. A pr-eifcty scene was witnessed in the Foundling Hospital, when 400 little children wok© up on the wintry morning to find that -Sanita Claus had been through all the wards during the night and filled

all the stockings. Four hundired pairs of eyes — 'brown eyes, blue eyes, grey eyes, and eyes of no particular colour — were bright with joy as they surveyed toy trumpets and dolls, Noah's arks and watches and trains, and later, in the great playroom, they found a great pyramid of toys too large to go in stockings — horses and carts, fire engines and motor-cars, everything that heart of boy or girl could desire. After the Christmas dinner came an afternoon of fun, and plenty of fruits and sweets, all provided by outsiders, who were not willing thart the children should mi6s the Cliristmas joy. Sixty-three thousand free meals were given in London on the Christmas Day alone by the aharitable institutions, among which is included Dr Barnado's Homes, the Ragged School Union, St. Giles's Christian Mission, and other missions in connection with the churches, and to all of these the King and Queen were liberal contributors. And on Christmas Eve in several different halls there were distributions of Christmas faTe to the poor. It is a sight to see ragged, attenuated figures, gaunt, hollow-eyed, their hands tremibling with eagerness stretched to take their gift — the one meal of da3-s! It is relief to turn and contemplate the gay and attractive restaurants and the homes of wealth and leisure — well-groomed men and pretty women sparkling with jewels, and to know that most of these have helped some homeless one to food and fire and shelter.