The Green Forest tribune., 1910-12-16

greater number of all the toys manufactured come from Nuremberg.
 The ancient feudal city, around which cluster the grim traditions of the inquisiton and the thrilling epic of the times of Charles ", has for four hundred years more been the center of the children's fairyland It has been and is the nucleus of Christmas happiness for the youth of every place in the Occident, and its charm is the perpetual one of joyous creation which de lights in planning the amusement of little people
 In the factories they will tell you that 72000. 900 marks. (S1S,0000 000) worth of pleasure is sent out from Nuremberg every year, and that S5,5OO,0G0 Of this export is for the benefit of Young America. Only few years ago all of the necessary labor for this immense production was done by hand, and much of the finishing and fine last touches are performed by special artists. Even now in the factories the cid spirit of an almost consecrated enthusiasm lives and is eVi- dent in the interest of the village artisans for their craft Not merely the reason of bread and butter goes toward the making of those marvel walking dolls, those phenomenal speaking picture books, those thousand and one games that have called for all the imaginative well as practical genius of these honest German peasant folk Rather has their unique industry called for and developed in them a romance, sensltiveness of perception which is remarkable.
 Follow the lurchng worn of the Al echt-Durerstrasse and you come to one or the many homes of this Nuremberg spirit In mll- iature red-roofed house, wedged in among a hun dred squat brown huts live two old men-broth- CTS, of sixty-five and seventy-Whose white heads are constantly bent over small circles or wood-shaping, paring carving, painting
 All day they sit there, sometimes all night, toiling over the delicately ornamented dolls dishes which perhaps you have bought, as small Insignificant thing just this afternoon Tor your small daughters tree.
 You looked at them careessly; they were not especially original or attractive, and you showed them into your bag with a half-hesitating accept ance, thinking that maybe they would please ca pricious Dorothy How could you know that back in the village of Always Christmas old hands had fashioned those trivial plates and pitchers, old eyes had strained with loving anxiety over those fine traceries of coumbine, and old hearts had warmed over those completed tri1es with the same thrill of the master painter over hs pest:
 But this was true Indeed, nearly all of the simple wooden toys are constructed by hahd' Ill some humble volkshause which goes to make up the aggregate creative force of Santa Claus workshop Take the tiny sets of soldiers. the dolls chairs and tables, the painted wooden anl- mals whose realism is delight to all children actual CT grown up. These are fashioned ln homes sometimes by the efforts Of whole talh- llies but most often by children themselves Sixteen is the age limit for child labor in the factories, but no young person is prohlplted rom assisting his parents at home, provided he spends the required period of time at school. 50 that many of those playthings which give most nap piness to the children of America have oeeh made by the children of Nuremberg Ana Il babies must work, what work could one nhu loi them more appropriate or more pleasuraple than