The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-12-24
THE NEV YORK GIRL.
WHAT SHE THINKS OF CHRIST
 MAS

shopping and Where and How She
 Does It.
 Tho New York girl refuses to be trag- ic about Christmas gifts. She even likes Christmas buying and finds that the holidays afford an opportunity to make good gifts that formailty at other timei forbids
 She is very modern indeed in her methods of making her Christmas buy ing interesting to herself. She has nothing to do with the conventional Christmas gift. She will not toll over slippers and dressing jackets.
 She does not believe, as many women do, in offering her strength and beauty as Christmas sacrifice. She will be generous, but she will not be bored. That's why she's cheerful about it.
 She does her buying in picturesque shops, where handwrought ornaments can be purchased by weight and won, derful Austrian made laces are sold for less money than the crude machine ia brio in a fashionable shop.
 There arc few Christmas buyers in these basement and backyard dingy corners, and there is all the time the world has and all the courtesy of the Orient in the dull little rooms that gilt ter with the red gleam of copper, the yellow glow of shiny brass, the high colors of old enamel inlay, the rich tones of prayer rugs and the sparkle of { harem wells.
 E Only few shops of really foreign in terest are scattered about the city possibly three in the various outshoots T from the squalid Russian quarter, half a dozen in the West Side Syrian settle ment, none in Chinatown unless you know the difference between real and fake bargains, couple of old maritime curiosity shops down on the east water front, where you find coppers and tag ends of fish net, and in the smarter dis { trict one shop with marvellous Spanish and Mexican pottery and one or two Indian stores where occasionally old E Navajo trinkets are to be found.
 The New York girl knows them all. t She knows their curious owners and exchanges gay holiday greeting with the young Syrian shopkeeper, run away nobleman, it seems, and with an aged Russian Hebrew who looks Ike a E figure from a picture.
 With Chinamen who offer Jersey [ City mandarin necklaces for the price E of a real mandarin's slave she is severe, and she is not to be fooled into squan- dering gold shekels for band of tin set with blue stone purporting to be from a E collection of jewels of an ancient Aztec X belle.
 N Her largest purchases are in the Syr- # ian quarter. The merchants are more s to be trusted, the prices, as everything Z is sold by the pound, are more unvary- ' ing; the courtesy shown the prospee- < tive customer is less pathetic and trem- bling, and there is far greater assort- ment of interesting, unusual articles to x select from.
 < Here she finds huge Damascus bowls oi hammered brass in which she sees < possibilities of scrap baskets, the sort E men would like, costing but couple of N dollars; and smaller bowls, picked out N in low relief instead of with raised brass figures exactly the thing for H bowls of study lamps. There are old < backsheesh brass boats in which gene rations of poor have begged for coppers, that inverted and lined with color and edged with fringe could make the most gorgeous lamp shades.
 The begging boats cost less than one dollar, and are hammered with Oriental scenes or covered with religious in scriptions picked out in low relief with { sharp instruments. the work of many & weeks
 Then for smaller gifts are the incense burners, low brass bowls hung with many chains or hammered brass tiny kiosks set on ebony pedestals, the lat ter costing couple of dollars, the for r mer not more than fifty cents.
 There are trays of every size and va Irietys of workmanship, round and ob- , long and several oval, just the size for E la glass of water, or a trife larger for 5cards, some of the trays covered with scenes of religious excitement, others with groups of hunters lost in jtngles, #or wild animals conventionalized, or E sentences from the Koran as elaborate Mas an illuminated text.
 M Hidden in very dark corner the HNew York girl found splendid old eDamascus blade with engraved hilt and scabbard, this for a daughty militry godfather who loathes Christmas and adores a huge valuable collection of swords.
 In the young nobleman's shop she found some fine cobwebby shawls of ,xsilk crochet, cream and pink and black, ideal for carriage throat scarfs and just the gift for gentle sisters of her father who would keep them for lifer time in orris scented boxes, and not costing the price of q liberty silk square.
 After a morning of purchases she Twas asked to drink coffee out of rare cups atsa Syrian restaurant and was chaperoned by Syrin poet and schol- lar, once professor of something old and remote at Oxford, and now the soul of a settlement of his own people, their ruler, priest and lawyer.
 The coffee was thick and black, and served with Turkish sWeetmeats and Ia white liquor that tastes intoxicating #and very unpleasant.
 When her purchases were sent home