CHRISTMAS EVE.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 438, 25 December 1868, Page 2

CHRISTMAS EVE.

Last night the town looked gayer and brisker than it has done for twelve months past, if not more lively than it ever has since it bore its name. The various decorations on the hotels and stores are too numerous at present to particularise, as nearly every hotel in town was, in some way or other, decorated or ornamented with evergreens and flags. Each place of amusement was filled with new faces.

The meat exhibited by the victuallers in town last evening was of the choicest kind; and, although this is not a pastoral district, finer carcases could not be seen in New Zealand, than those offered for sale by Messrs Dick and Seaton, by Mr Woolfe, of the London Butchery, and at Mr M'Laren's shop. The drapers were not less active in displaying their goods, judging from the number of men who entered their shops and who, on their re-appearance in the streets, presented such a different view as regarded their habiliment. Those gentlemen had, indeed, a large amount of trade and talking to get through. The window of Messrs Eoberts and Simpson gave evidence of the coming events, in jockey boots and tops, and other specimens of workmanship in leather, fully fitted for the use of a starter or clerk of a race-course. Hotelkeepers, stationers, confectioners, and others made an outward appearance creditable to their taste and enterprise, and there was generally an amount of decoration which deserves to be noticed at greater length at another time.