The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-12-23 00:00:00

ARCHER C LARKE'S

CHRISTUAS SPECIALITIES.
DECORATIONS FOR CHURCHES AND HOHES

CHRISTMAS CARDS
From 4 a 14. to ss. each.
RICE PAPER CHRISTMAS CARDS
Painted by Hand, from 6J. each.
Scrap Books eapecially made to hold Chriltmas Cards,

irom 110.
Scrap Books, from & to 21a, for Scraps, Newspaper
Camillo, Comic Cutting*, arid Cuttings from the
nustratcd Papers.
STAMP ALBUMS.

Portrait Albums to hold 8, 12, 10, 103, or 200 Cartes.
Portrait Albums to hold Cartes, Illgnettes, Cabinets,

and Scraps.

Pdrtrait Albums to Losk fir Cartes, Frames, or
Cabinets in Velvet, Gold, Oak, Brats, lv..ry, and 'Leather
to laold 1,2, 3. or 4 Portraits.
Oxford Frames in o.k, or Gold, or tek s.nd Gold.

Gold Oval Picture Frames.
Gold Brackets very Elegant.
Fret Work Brackets, Oak or Walnut.
Artists Colours and Brushes.
Drawing Paprr and Canvasses.
Serape 'jut Out or Flat, over 660 Varieties
Transfer Pictures, Zr nn 40 a Id.
Goodall's Playing Cards.
Glass Letter Weights for Carts or Cabinets.
AR Elegant Edition of tile new Hymns, Anc.ent and
Modern for the waistcoat p icket, from ls. 31. each.
Swiss Wood (foods.
Cartes and Cabinet Franies.
Handkerchief and Glov.) Boxes.
Brackets with 1,2, or 3 !3htives.
Brackets Carved or Plain.
Letter Racks, Hat th Box-is, Book S;bles, Easels, Flower

Vases, Corner BrAckets.
Smoking Tables, 7s. G I. to 255.
Letter Papr cad Envelopes.
Cases open or to lock.
Magic Lantern anl Slides t.,) Hire or for Exhibtions at
ChO Als and Private or Inbi Parties.

71, HIGH-ST., STOURB RID G.E

WANTED, after Christmas by an old
yirm, a Glasd !louse MANAGER
of experience. Ho will tia re(iair,l- to make the metal
y.—X•idre•s, stating
MeiArs.
ait 4 •upetintentl the w"rka
qua!ifteations and sal,rs cia rerl, T. Terry,
!,,e..eart,, .01 Co., G. !IA :cm t..rarterr, London.

O
WAN r :), RO. Olt and GARDENER
A i.ttoc..lv t wtch good reference.•
30n.1
3.121 act: , Pedinore, Stourbridza.
ottar.—A?P:y -V. B.

Eke 3:ourbcibge Obemer.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23, 18761

CHRIS rMAS.

oniversal celebration ef aentornon festival
by :t;1 people, witutever eiv-
UULII3I.4IILI, ;AUL" ill Cliury i ULeVelljo

- .

which might well suggest thought and reflec-
tion. So far as an Englishman i 8 concerned, it
does not signify whether at Christmastide, he is
in the Arctic regions or under a burning sun
in an Australian bush, for the festive season is
certain to be observed. In our own island, so
far from the festival dying out as an anticipated
institution which has had its diy, every year
seems to add to the means for its commemora-
tion. The dark December days are enlivened
by the interchange of compliments and the con-
templation of good cheer. Social enjoyment,
religious devotion, and the kindness and
benevolence that seem to be stimulated into
activity by the cheerful response which is made
to charitable appeals, are now the regular con-
comitant of Christmas time. According to
English custom, it is the habit to make extra-
ordinary provision for physical wants at the
period when Christmas falls. This may have
had its origin in the instinct of self preserva
tion. We often hear the tradition of those
"old-fashioned winters," when snow lay thickly
upon the ground on the 25th of December, and
a keen and frosty air rendered necessary
abundance of bodily fuel in order to keep alive
the spark of life, Our Arctic navigators tell us
that the atmosphelie influence of cold often
presses hardly upon the vital forces, and lowers
the action of the nerves. Food often and in
plenty is therefore essential if the human
frame isto be kept in health and comfort. Who
knows but that the custom of laying in extra
provisions at Christmas may not have been sug-
gested to our forefathers by the piercing air
which was the usual accompaniment of the
season ? They might also have argued that had
they no good cheer, and no special aid for
enlivening the shortest days and longest nights
of the year, those days and nights would have
been the dullest periods of their existence, and
too much of a departure from those equable con-
ditions of mind and body which tend to a long
and useful life. But whatever might have been
the origin of the practice of merry.making and
feast-giving at Christmas its observance has
been by no means affected by the milder charac-
ter of the winters which fall to the lot of the
present generation. Often enough there is a
warm wind blowing from the south-west—a
brePze tempered rather by the influence of the
Gulf Stream than by the icy currents of the
Polar Seas ; but this fact makes no difference in
the manner of the celebration. Earth's good
things are enjoyed none the less in a genial
temperature, and the flow of charity in the
direction of the poor and the needy is just as
beuntiful as though the boughs of the leafless
trees were beautiful with snow which glistened
in the oblique rays of a midwinter sun.
A healthy and salutary development of the
habits of the present age is the immense
quantity. of special literature produced for the
reading public at each succeeding Christmas.
It is not only the physical frame which is now
attended to, but an increasing effort is clearly
made to supply the means for reading of a kind
most acceptable when people are in the best
mood for mental pleasure. The additional
labour which is thus set in motion must carry
the ways and means for enjoying Christmas into
many a home which would otherwise be less
cheerful when other place are so bright. A
glance at the published lists of Christmas works
shows a wonderful amount of these special pro-
ductions for young and old, and, indeed, for all
sorts and conditions of M:11. But, putting aside
the extra work, the more active employment,
and the additional remuneration for all who are
thus occupied, it is obvious that an educating
and elevating agency is thus called into existence
which produces a good effect. The bread cast
upon the waters in eastern lands is found after
many days ; and those lessons of charity and
goodwill so plentifully inculcated at Christmas
time do not always pass away with the occasion
which called them forth. Precept and illustra-
tion both leave a track behind them which is
not obliterated by the gradually lengthening
days. They linger in the memory• and are
pondered in the heart when spring begins to
release the earth from the icy grasp of winter,
when the branches of the trees are laden with
the verdure with which they are clothed by
summer, and with the fading tints of autumn
serve as reminders to man of the passing away
of the harvest, thus conveying the lesson that
all things upon earth, even life itself, must have
termination. "The poor ye have always with
you," is as true now as when the words were
first uttered, nearly 2,000 years ago, and the
relief to poverty which is rendered at Christmas
is not in all casts permitted to remain in abey-
ance until Christmas rolls round again, but is
exercised at other times and other seasons.
Then again it is but a natural step from the
physical and mental enjoyments of Christmas,
to its devotional phases. It is peculiarly a time
for thankfulness to the Great Giver of all good
—thankfulness on the part of those who have
rendered relief to penury and wretchedness that
they have been enabled to lighten a load of
sorrow, as well as on the part of those who have
been recipients of the bounty. Let, therefore,
the customs of the past long continue in all their
integrity; let the midnight siugers arouse the
echoes of that morning when peace and good-
will were wished to all men; and the merry bells
ring out their welcome to the day when the
strife of contending parties is forgotten and the
asperities of life are put aside in honour of a
festival which without distinction of race or of
climate is so heartily celebrated in all the
Christian lauds of this fair earth.