Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1898-12-25
YESTERDAY A BUSY Day.
The Local Retail Stores Almost
Swamped by the Rush.
THOUSANDS CT PURCHASERS UPON
THE STREETS DURING THE DAY
AND LAST NIGHT, AND MANY
BUSINESS HOUSES WERE OPEN
UNTIL MIDNIGHT-MANY STRAIN
GERS IN THE CITY


The season of Christmas shopping
came to glorious end last night, and
to-day as one result almost every man,
woman and child within the limits
of the city of Wheeling and its sur
rounding towns will be happier in that
they will be recipients of some gift,
small though it may be and of modest
| intrinsic worth, from one near and
| dear.
Seldom indeed has there been tan
gible evidence of more holiday business
than was afforded yesterday and last
| night. Not only were our own people
and our immediate neighbors out on
the streets in full force, but strangers
came to town by hundreds, and were
to be seen upon every side. AS a re-
suit, the railroad business was as large
as it ever was during holiday sea
son, while the express package trade
possibly broke all records in this city
During yesterday and last night the
| interior of the postoffice was a sight,
/ but Postmaster Wise and his force
moved a remarkable quantity of mail
packages during the day, and this
morning the entire force will be on
duty again, and everything will be
cleared out and placed in the hands OF
recipients. The carriers who went out
of the office on yesterdays deliveries
were fairly loaded down to the guards
with bundles of all sizes and shapes,
while there were left in the Office even
late in the afternoon many large bas-
kets of small packages which the men
could not place in the hands of those
to whom they were addressed. The
mail of this sort was probably larger
than ever before-certainly larger than
during recent years.
At the express offices it was the
same story. The Adams Express Com
pany, particularly, handled an enorm-
Gus volume of business, and handled it
we'll. The others had about as much
as they could do, as well, and the bus
mess was about equally divided between
receipts and consignments for out Of
town.
1t was more fun than a little to
! watch the street car travel, yesterday
afternoon. A Register reporter made
a trip over several miles of the
Wheeling railway line yesterday after
noon, and it was an unusual expert
ence The cars, as a rule, were so
| we'll filled that there was just room
for the conductors to hand one
with one foot, and collecting
fares required more agility and patti
ence than is possessed by the average
| citizen. Within the cars were so
| filed with all sorts of things sacred
| to Christmas that they looked like
| sections of retail stores, and when a
stop was made for passengers to alight
it required both time and ingenuity
| for one, particularly if that one was
arms, to get to the door and off into
| the street without losing fair per-
centage of the portable property in
| the scramble. One conductor said to
a reporter as the car was making an
! afternoon run through tle South Side:
! Just look back there. | have been on
the road for a good many Christmases,
but | never saw anything like that.
Amt it great?" Then he sighed, and
| started to collect the fares.
The cars to over-the-river points
| during Ike day were as bad as on the
main line, and last night both were
worse, if that be possible, than during
| the afternoon.
Last evening another spectacle only
| presented in Wheeling once a year,
was to be seen on Main street, between
| Twelfth and Eleventh. The sidewalks
were so crowded that movement along
them was often difficult and always
slow, while numbers of the stores
were crowded to their capacity, and
in one instance the crowd in front of a
place of bushes extended beyond the
curb-stone. OF course, under such
conditions, being waited on was al
most an impossibility, no matter how
hard the force of clerks might work,
and after one fought their way into
such a store, spent more or less
protracted season in often fruitless
waiting, and they combatted a way
out again, a big hole had been made
in an afternoon or evening, and Few
such experiences used up a day. That
is popularity supposed, however, to
constitute one of the delights of shop
ping and if this be true, the ladies
enjoyed themselves to the full.
It's all over now. however, and to-
day the fruits of the purchasing strug-
giles will be enjoyed, and the trials and
troubles of the past week or two, as
we'll as the cost thereof, will be forgot
ten in the delights of giving and receiv-
ing. and happiness and good cheer, it
is to be hoped, will reign supreme, not
only throughout Wheeling, but all over
this and other lands.
The Register wishes everyone a Mer-