Los Angeles herald., 1905-12-17

fails to receive Christmas letter. ooh, I say
look again, won't you. You must have missed
it. is the plea, and the postmaster patiently
looks more through the remaining mail hop
ing that he may have overlooked the letter asked
for He hates to give "No," for he appre
ciates the heartsinking and depression that goes
with it.
1t is not right in the heart of Dawson City or
Sitka or in any town of size that Christmas Day
is the most cheeress, but miles away from even
village of any pretension where Uncle Sam has
as yet been unable to his wand and bring
comforts of civilization, there the winter ho
days have little to make them festive. But Arc
tic SHOWS have not frozen the Christmas spirit
out of the American hearts that beat there any
more than the tropical suns have burned it out
in the Philippines. In both lands it is the so
lation, the being away from the familiar family
faces away from the busy home scenes over
which the smell of the holly, the mirth of the
mistletoe, the fragrance of the browning turkey,
the mysterious secrecy surrounding the tying up
of gifts, prevails that makes Christmas a lone
some time in new lands, period when It is hard
to bravely fight home-sclness unless many tok-
ems of loving remembrance are sent from friends
at home. It is in sending gifts to these exiles
that the true spirit of Christmas is seen at its
best and brightest.
It's a pretty big jumper more correctly
speaking, long swim-from the ski to the palm
leaf fan, yet that's where our latest acquisitions
carry us. From the barren land of No Mans
Country to the Flat lands around Manila our
Christmas wishes must travel.
While the hardships and lack of luxuries ex-
perienced in Alaska are not felt in the Philip
pines, still Christmas on the Islands, where
strange customs reign and where the porker sup
plants the gobbler, makes many cast longing
eyes across the Pacific to the United States
where the sleigh bells are jngling, the snow is
falling, the Christmas candles are being lighted
wreaths of holly hung and all made festive as
is proper at this season.
In the Philippines
As we snuggle down in comfort under down
quilts on Christmas Eve, tired, but happy. after
a day full of the little things that always have
to be done at the last minute on the day before
Christmas our kith and kin in the Philippines
are restlessly brushing away fly or spider and
wishing that Christmas with its ncongruous ae-
compartment of warmth and bloom were over
There is holly, no fur-clad Santa Claus. no
SNOW, not even a sprig of mistetoe ON the island
to make the day homelike Turkey can't be had
for love money and in this the man from
the States suffers alike in the Philippines and in
Alaska It's dollars to doughnuts that the for
eign cook never heard of plum pudding, so where
does Christmas come in? Just in at one place
in both lands, and that's at the postoffice. On
Christmas the mail if it has been delayed is
sorted right ON board the steamer which brings
il and 1t is distributed from there in the "cool
OF the forenoon" imagine it--cool of the fore
noon ON Christmas Day
Ii sounds strange TO shout Merry Christmas
while the sun bazes and the flowers bloom but
down by the waters edge with the penned greet,
ings in hand just brought to the islands from the
United States by Uncle Sam, the Americans on
this new land of ours give voice to the greet
ing with regular Yankee heartness. Oh, it's