The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-12-06
XMAS WILL BE
 SIMPLE ONE IN
 ENGLISH CITIES
Elaborate Dinners to Be Cut Out So That Food Supply
 May Be Protected.

London, Dec. 6.-seWish you a simple Christmas is to be the Christ mas greeting in England this year. In other words, self-denial-but a self-denial free from dismalness-is to be the keynote of the country's coming Yuletide season. Festive ex- travagance, riotous indulgence, and thoughtless debauchery are to give place to simplicity, joy, thankfulness and thoughts for the wounded, the sufferers, and the soldiers and sailors who are fighting for their country. The advent of the food dictator and the realization by the British people that after two years of war there is urgent. need for the hus- banding of their food stores, is re- sponsible for the simplicity of the coming festival of joy and thanksgiv- ing. The two previous Christmases in the war were celebrated according to tradition-a time of feasting and festivity and present-giving, a period of general relaxation; and of charity also. But conditions have altered, the stern realities of war have been brought even closer to the people, so that the necessity for greater self denial is more apparent. Economy
 
 word this Christmas.
 Already President Runciman of the Board of Trade has told the hotel |proprietors that they will have to eli minate gala, dinners and the usual en- tertainments Some of the leading hotels had already prepared elabor- ate dinners for Christmas and New Years at from $5 to $1O a plate Still others had applied for an extension of the closing hours until or 3 o'clock in the morning just as they do in New York and other big cities of the United States.
 But the Liquor Control Board put it's foot down on this. This body which regulates the hours at which drinking may be indulged in set it's face sternly against all extensions of hours. It refused to even tilt the lid. Thus the restricted hours in effect al- most since the beginning of the war, namely 12 o'clock to 2:30 in the aft ernoon and 6:30 to g in the evening, will remain undisturbed during the Christmastide.,
 To say that this refusal of the auth critics to 'listen to reason as the hotelmen and caterers put it, has been disappointing is putting it mildly, and the result was frequent meetings at which appeals were drawn up, but all to no avail. MT. Runciman told the hotelmen that un- less they revised their menus he would do it for them and the Liquor Control Board said something about taking away licenses and shutting up the places just as they sometimes threaten in American cities The ho- telmen were told that 1t was not a question whether or not they would set 8 good example to others, but an actual matter of food shortage. Hotel and restaurant patrons must eat less and more cheap1y. If they do not, others will go hungry.
 Housewives have also planned sim pier Christmas dinner The prices of meats, turkeys, hams, the ingredi- ents for plum buildings and mince- pies, the raisins and nuts are suffi- cfently alarming, and the possibility that by buying and eating too pro- fusely of these things they will rm- peril the food supply of others is be- ginning to be realized.
 Among the signs of a simpler Christmas will be the abandonment of decorated displays in butchers, poul- terers' and provision shops.
 With the approach of the holiday season the War Savings Committee renewed it's campaign. It's mottos were: Hospitality without Extrava- nanee;. Humer without Hate; The Best Christmas Present "A War Savings Certificate. Still another pa-