The Washington times., 1894-12-25
FACTS AND FANCIES
OF The XMAS CAMERA
Pictures Of People and Things
Taken from the Pavement.
PREMIUM ON MIND READING
Poor People Who See Their Presents
As In Looking Glass.
A Night Rambler Among the Folks Of Fash
ion and Folks We Seldom see-What the
Side Lights and Side Issues on the Gilt
tering Boulevards and Avenues of the City.

Washingtonians. to whom tbrongs Of peo-
pie anywhere and every where on the streets
are everyday aIairs, must yet have bean
struck with the unusually crowded aspect OF
all the popular thoroughfares last evening. IL
was Saturday night before the beautiful festi-
val which all the Christian world is soon to
celebrate.
There was light. and the glitter of tens OF
thousands OF gaudy things, gold and silver
and tin and steel, and all the coors OF the
rainbow flashing from curious and funny
things OF art, toys. plate. and glossy silks and
satins, all the way from Brussels and Bonn
bay. There were likewise tens of thousands
of bright eyes peering into the windows and
building castles, and furnishing especially
those castles in Spain which we all have
erected or will erect when the wind from the
gold cost blows our way. There were plumes
and silk hats. rosy cheeks and ruby lips,
cheeks soft as satin. cheeks bearded like the
pard, roses and violets, and roses red,
white, and blue, silks and cali
Goes, cashmere and Kentucky jeans,
sealskin saques, and shawls with airholes
that have been handed down from mother 10
daughter for several generations. All these
people were minding their own business, but
they were all intent on the same business.
II was a night of reconnaissance. There
was not great dca l)f buying going on, but
a vast deal of admiration OF the glorious
spectacles which filled every window on
street and Peans ylvania avenue from the
Capitol to the Treasury and from the grand
Avenue way up nearly to the Boundary on
Seventh aud Fourteenth streets. In Wash
ington it is just as it is everywhere else in the
world OF giving and receying-they pro-
crastinate in buying that particular Christ
mas gift the souvenir par excellence, which
is 10 indicate the friendship or
LOVE OF THE GIvER
The whole multitude last night, with the
execution of the little people. who were hur-
ried along from window to window, might be
said to be engaged in the difficult task of
making mp its aggregate and several mind on
The question: 'What shall it be?' That
pretty and dainty things shine in every wiz
dow from ali parts of tho world somewhat
enhances the embarrassment of this partlcu-
lar phase OF the social seasOa. II Is III ore
than perddventuro that the great majority
OF folks who were out last night viii be out
. again tomorrow morning with that same
load of doubt and uncertainty on their seiec-
tive or eclectic faculty which gave all their
vision that fascinating Gar-away quality last
evening.
Ten 10 enc the last choice will not be as
good rs the first, but that difficulty will rot
he removed from sub-lunary Christmas affairs
until il becomes the mode for the prospective
receiver TO nominate the definite article. 1t
is the indefinite article that makes young
men crazy in this season OF intended peace
aud good will to all men, Ii Celeste wanted
Il bracelet or two and you staked your money
~ Il F.safF nv
gong half OF the mouths receipts on one of
those god-mounted tortoise shell bRckh
pins you will know in due time that there is
Il fiv somewhere in Celeste's Tule tide oint-
ment.
Orif you imagined that all babies want a
rattle and, on this general ratiocination.
bought your own hopeful a tin thing full of
shot, when he wanted the wagon and two red
tin horses that he saw and loved in the early
part OF the month, you well know that the
post was liar Ca you well put it, who wrote
the fairy tale OF home, sweet home Ramahs
lameGtatiOn for her children because they
were not will de nothing to tho howl of
/ papa's boy because the wagon is not. And
this is why we should begin the mind-making
! and mind-reading early in the fall If life at
that season is not TO be
A WAKING NIGHTMARE.
/ Marriage judged by some Of its living re-
! suits on the Avenue last evening is certainly
a failure. The TINES rambler circulated
around about some OF the stores, the win
/ dows of which are enough to give learned
people the strabismus. and children the
1 plain. every day aIliction OF cock eye. or
| squint eye man and his wife, judging
from the number of bundles she carred--the
dromedary of the house-came out of store
! followed and preceded by seven children of
the step-ladder sizes and ages. One of the
| boys, as soon as he got on the street, threw
down Il drum and kicked it around like lit
/ tie fend. He screamed as he kicked, and
told everybody within half a block that he
didn't want any burned drum" He had
told "poppa" that he wanted a football.
Macbeth never killed half as much
sleep and happiness in the house as did that
kid somewhere last night. Poppa disowned
his own hoy on the spot and told him So
Nobody will doubt that this is only one in
stance out OF many that happened.
The indefinite article becomes an impos-
| sihle article in many & bousehold-the point
that was made yesterday morning in THE
TIMES. On such occasions as last night You
see u great many people on tho Avenue who,
perhaps go there only on the one or two
nights Just before Xmas. They don't go
there 10 buy anything, for the saddest reason
| III all the world. they haven't ything to buy
with sympathy is not current as cash
Wistful eyes are no! good for the least yaiua-
bic in any dazzling window in Washington.
These people only go out to see things,
TO DREAM DREAMS.
When some ill-cad children stand in Won
der before the windows of some of these gilt
tering palaces, and talk about drums they'll
never beat, or about dolls or other pretty
things. and move on with retrospective
glance of mot for me, you wish you had a
pocket as deep as an Austrian quicksilver
shaft-but you haven't, and besides the Bohe-
mians are out of sight and up to their eye
brows and down TO the bottom of their souls
dream u again at some other store. where
Santa Claus in the flesh is doing his great
annual Russian play behind the plate glass
windows.
There is somewhere in the antique chroni-
ces wise saw which says that Boston baked
beans and No 2 ham are better than stalled
OK and herbs, articnokes, celery, asparagus.
and the like When you see boy or girl
with patched trousers Che boy or faded
smock frock eating cream puff through a
two-inch French plate beveled glass win
dow by the psychological process known only
to inventive poverty. you are apt to think
that some of the history of consolation is
legendary to the core. 1t won't do at this
season of the year, and that will serve to
point the moral right here.
Pemamher tine little hoys or girls who live