The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-12-31 00:00:00

SELECTIONS.

CHRISTMAS IN THE STREETS.
(From Punch's Snapdragons for Christmas.)

Up from lazy hearth-side and silent chamber! Up and
forth into the busy places of the city ! Mark the soften-
ing influence of the merry time upon crowding, swarming
men and women !---forth, and with Christmas in the heart,
find Christmas in the streets.

See how people throng admiringly round that butcher's
shop. There's beef !—there's mutton ! A proud ox he
ought to be who furnished forth that sirloin. How jollily
it will smoke, amid its smaller compeats on the Christ-
mas table : a right down English dish. Talk of sirloins
and barons of beef ; they should bt, promoted in the aris-
tocracy ; the " sir " made a " baron" and the baron a
duke. Baron, loin, and duke of beef ! How the jolly
butcher, too, is cutting—hacking away, till his face is as
red as the lean of his meat. Many a Christmas dinner is
he dispensing, lightening his labour with admiring criti-
cism on his tare.

" Never was sich a ox killed, ma'am, as this here !"
And he removes the bunch of evergreens, which appeared
to grow out of it—like the shady sine on the hind quarters
of Baron Munchausen's horse—and critically displays the
fat, so white, and the lean, so ruddy. How the people
buy ; and with less haggling and chaffering than usual ;
for who would wrangle and get angry, about a halfpenny
in the pound, at Christmas time ?
And then the geese, and the turkeys : long rows of
white victims, looking, if possible, fatter and plumper
than the remains of their quadruped of the farm. Sheep
and oxen, look to your laurels! You have done great
things, but take care ; get fat and tender, or the feathered
creatures will carry the day—cut you out at Christmas !
Such an array of two-legged animals, without feathers !
You ask whether there remains a pound in England, en-
livened by the padding of a single goose ; or a barn-yard,
musical with the gobble-gobble of a single turkey. They
seem all in London—Poor plucked victims of Christmas!
ready to be served up, on its altars—darouzlt-covered
table-cloths—by its high-priests—cooks.
What dismal ideas of Christmas must be entertained in
poultry-yards ! What fearful yearly visitation sweeps off
the most promising of its inhabitants !—geese from whom
so much was expected ; cocks and hens, so amiable in
domestic life! But King Christmas is King Death to
them, as he stalks over the land ; his merry songs sound
their doleful dirges ; his wholesome breath is the pestilence
of which they die !
Butchers' and poulterers' shops are great places in
Christmas time ; but it is in the markets that their displays
are most lavish. They are the very penetialia of the tem-
ples sacred to Christmas fare. There the meat looks big-
ger and fatter than ever—as if the world had turned ante-
diluvian, and steaks of mammoth and megathrion were
commonly sold for beef and mutton. And there, also,
thronging amid stalls, and through narrow passages, hum
and cluster the admiring, enticing, buying, joking, laugh-
ing crowd.

A confectioner's shop, too, is a thing to be looked at.
That cake is quite imaginative. The ravines of coloured
sugar are beautifully picturesque ; the temple upon the
rock is of a peculiar order c t architecture ; not Corin-
thian, bat rather Twrlfih-Nightian ; and if the scarlet
and gold men and women are. half the size of the moun-
tain, and decidedly Uiller than the temple, we ought to
admire that fine imaginative genius, which hurt the bonds
.of nature, and quite remodels and reforms the retrospec-
tive sizes of men and mountains.

And how long pr,,c; ssions of charity boys and girls are
defiling along the pavements. Muffin c,ps and yellow
leathers are someway or other always on the move about
Christmas time. The beadle you will observe shines
with more than usual lustre of beadleduni ; he has
mounted a new cocked hat, and his bearing is striking to
behold. The children look happy too : the who:e line is
one long giggle. Is there not to be a Christmas dinner ?
To be sure there is; vague rumours have been in circu-
lation for a fortnight, touching the incredible quantity of
roast beef in preparation, and whispers have been heard
of ale. A boy of great resolution ventures to hint an in-
quiry to the beadle, who, wonderful to relate, does not
tad him over the knuckles, but smiles with a pleasant
mystery, and tells him to be a good boy, and he will see
what he shall see.

Evening is coming on. Blinds are drawn down sooner
than usual, because everybody is anxious to begin the
pleasant snug time of candlelight. Gas flares furiously in
open shops and markets, bursting forth in small volcanoes,
as if it were determined to cook the dainties which still
main unpurchased, even should there be customer to cut
them. Omnibuses going to the suburbs, where snug
cottages and villas abound, are perfectly loaded with the
invited to dinner porties; and on the roofs are deposited
stores from the fruiterers or the fishmongers ; parcels of
apples and nuts and barrels of oysters.
And now there comes, as the darkness gradually closes,
pleasantly stealing upon the nose a sense of the flavour
of roasted goose. It increases—it becomes palpable—
there can be no mistake about it. Forth from every
third chimney-post comes the smoke of a Christmas din-
ner, and the flavour of the fare, until all London is per-
vaded with the smell of roast goose. See how people
sniff it, and nod knowingly. They recognise the odour—
sweeter than Sabrean spice, myrrh—the incense of the
Christmas worship !
And with the incense the chant of the festive rites—the
carol—the old well-remembered traditionary Christmas
carol. Hark ! it is pealing from cbildren's ringing
voices, s, unding shrilly over the low roar of the moving
city • speaking of mirth and friendly greetings, and good
wishes between man and man.