Greenery for Christmas.

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 114, 6 January 1932, Page 4

Greenery for Christmas.

At one time no Christmas in New Zealand towns was considered to he appropriately celebrated unless shop fronts and verandahs were profusely decorated with greenery and native bush plants. About 20 years ago the custom eommenced to fall into disuse, and recently there has been no attempt to use this type of decoration, which is now prohibited by law. Something of a revival has, however, been attempted in Temuka and old residents of South Canterbury who passed through there during Christmas had pleasant memories of earlier festive seasons revived. First War Casualty. It is surprising to read that a letter inviting applieations for a Christmas hamper from anybody who was wounded prior to August 27, 1914, produced no fewer than 150* letters. In those early days of the war casualj ty lists were an innovation. They only app'eared at irregular intervals in the newspapers. Nobody realised' the columns and columns of sorrow that were destined to be printed before the disease had run its cour3e. It would j be interesting to know the name of the | first man of every nationed mentioned j as a casualty and just how he met his I death. If stories are to be believed, j the first casulaty in the British Army reported in a casualty list was a I British officer who fell off his horse 1 behlnd the lines when an orderly who ! was delivering a message started his j motor cycle. The officer is supposed I to have landed on his head and died of concussion. Again, the last cas- | ualty in the war is commonly said to j have been a stretcher case being ear- ! ried out of the line by twb bearers. The stretchers case, a nice "blighty," is supposed to have been shot through the heart by a spent machine-gun hullet. If that is correct, it was certainly bad luck. But judging by the rigours of peace it is doubtful if he has missed very much. When is Christmas? Perhaps it matters little upon what day we agree to celebrate the birth of Christ. It seems inexcusable, however, even after nearly a couple of thousand years, that we have tacitly ?agreed to place His birth in A.D. 1. 3 This had occurred because posterity blindly believed the statement of a ttionk called Dionysius the Little that Christ was horn in the 753rd year from the foundation of Rome. It has been proved that this monk was wrong. It may sound absurd, but Christ was born some time B.C. For example, St. Luke declares that Christ was 30 years old in the fifteenth year of 'the reign of Tiberius. If this be true, Christ was born in B.C. 3 or B.C. 4. This fact is confirmed by astronomers. Josephus mentions an eclipse of the moon which took place just before the death of Herod. This places Christ's birth somewhere about September B.C. 5, or March, B.C. 4. Does that mean we have just celebrated Christmas 1935 ? Death Traps A- Canadian farmer who has been visiting the Old Country has been telling Canadian farmers that they have little to grumble at. He found the English farmer to be hit very hard, the arable as well as the dairy f axmer. He was not impressed with the country roads of England. While •the main roads are fairly good, any i side road, he 'says, is a death trap for ' automobiles, and the narrowness ' of ; dahgerous turns would never be tolerated in Cnnadn.