The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-12-25

fSnecial CORRESPONDENCE OF The INDEPENDENT.
HEW YORK. DEC. 21.-NEVER DIE
nv ! feel 50 like q messenger OF mercy
TX and a herald Of happy thoughts.
Wherever I went it WAS the same.
Men with ~preoooupied faces turned from
their business to hear but a sentence be-
fore they broke into a broad grin and
called to each other across the desks, and
Others came up to see what it was all about.
Az the British consulate, for instance, a
sick seaman, an irate doctor and a dis
Uusted clerk were having n triangular duel
Of words when / entered, but when spoke
the clerk looked relieved, the doctor and
she seaman ambled of together. while !
was shown into an inner room where sat
Consul Gilbert Fraser, and his blonde
bearded face lighted up with a smile. too.
For it was of Christmas ! spoke, and its
observance in many lands varied. but al
ways with a core OF kindness and home
feeling running through il.
.sChristmas in England has not changed
of late or grown in its observance" said
Mr.. Fraser. "It couldn't very we'll, for the
British have always been famous at Yule'
tide merry-making OF course the lord of
misrule and his twelve-aay court have gone,
for EnRlishmen are now 700 busy, though
NOT SO busy as you Americans, to give up so
much time"
s'Then you think vi do work harder?'
s'Oh, dear me! yes; twice as hard. One
Of the greatest things about the En- glish
Christmas is the way in which it has been
carried round the ~wosld-yew and holly.
mistletoe and bay, snapdragon. plum pud-
ding and all by English people. In Aus
tralia, New Zealand or Madras. in spite OF
the burning heat, you will find the Eng
Ash Christmas. Shiploads of holly and
<mistletoe 90 out to the far colonies. Be-
tween America ana Great Britain flow two
amending streams of holiday gifts at this
season of the year. With this we have, OF
course, no offici al connection, but the num-
berless queries we get about rates of duty
and money orders tells the story"
Herr Ferdinand Ritschl, vics-consel of
Germany at New York, has a broad and
good humored face, which grew an inch
broader when I explained my errand.
he said. $50 it is at home. On Christmas
eve the tree is decked and lighted and
everybody is at home. There is the FIST
holiday and the second. for December &c is
a holiday too, and the tree is kept decked
until New Years day. Your Santa Claus is
our Kriss Krinsle. you know. Oh. the Ger
man Christmas has gone round the world
and is fast conquering this country.
America is learning Christmas from its
German citizens"
''The tree is universal, then, in Ger
many?"
'.Yes, the spruce and the cedar"
"Und Ta%nnenbaum auch?"
.'Yes, the tannenbaum (hemlockl, too;
that sounds good. Hundreds of thousands
OF Young evergreens from she Schwarzwald
and { ON local forests are used every year"
M. Maxine Durand, at the French con-
sulate, assured me that France has a
Christmas. too. of a somewhat different
pattern-rather n church than a home fes-
tival, and without so much evergreen mixed
up in it.
"And to the children hang up their stock
incs for Santa to FLIP"
mo, not their stockings. but their boots
or shoes. And not at Christmas. but at
New Years. which is the day sacred to gift
giving, and not for Santa Claus, for We
have nothing akin to him unless it be oar
Pere Noel. French children are rather too
rational to care for such mystiications.
But they appreciate the gifts and the home
visits just as we'll without"
Mr.. Christopher Raun sat in his office at
the consulate of Sweden and Norway puz-
ling over, | don't know what sstuts prob
lem, when the mental concept of q Scandi-
navian Yuletide was substituted, and he