CHRISTMAS EVE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8012, 26 December 1905, Page 2

CHRISTMAS EVE.

AT NEW PLYMOUTH. Saturday was Christmas Eve in the commercial sense, and our local business people seemed to reap a rich harvest. Shops were gay with ferns and flags, and the streets bore a holiday appearance, thronged with holiday crowds. There were holiday noises, too, Here a leather-lunged infant blew blasts into a tin trumpet, evidently trying to drown the lon' drone of a neighbour's Jew's harp, or the doubtful melody of a threepenny mouthorgan. It was the children's gala day. Pocket money had melted away in lollies and toys, and sticky lingers, grinny faces, and medley sounds betokened the unalloyed happiness of the juvenile section of the community. The suburban and country districts emptied their hundreds into Devonstreet. Fathers and mothers brought their offspring in to see the shops, and the elders prepared to once more hoodwink the rising generation with Hie fairy-talcs of Santa Clans and his gilts. All flic shops did roaring trade. Cay in their niiilti-liiied attire, defying alike the rainbow and the laws of blends and contrasts, the Maori belles promenaded the streets, and the low melodious greetings of the wahincs lilted the air, which was sometimes surcharged with excited Maori verbosity and the fumes of the cigarettes of natives, .young and old. The dusky beau was most uuseltlsh, landing his hall'-sinoked M'eed to liis female friend with a nonchalant air that proved tiip frequency of the performance, and decking her out in cheap jewellery, gay ribbon*, elaborate and bright sunshades. The Maori love for colour was everywhere a feature of tho everchanging spectacle of (he streets. Evening saw the footpaths and roadways thronged with hundreds who were Oitl "to ;:ee and be seen." Peace

and goodwill, ihe season's greetings, everywhere abounded, and shops nere 1, bright with lifjht and lantern and the/ smiles of thcn.e, whom the season prompted the •• little deeds of kindness, I little word;-; of love " that in the words i of the poet " make ibis earth an ]Dden, , like the Heaven above." There was no rowdyism, no objectionable language, 1 no disturbance. Peoplo secmcijji&d i with the desire to display the tluTcwas "peace on oarthi|JHD ,