New-York tribune., 1917-12-26
City's Pockets,
War Tightened,
Loosen for Xmas
Those Who Had Gave Free
Iy to Those Who Had
Not This Year

Despite the general spirit Of careful
spending this holiday season, New York
City's poor Jared as generously yester-
day as on any Christmas before the
war began.
For the spirit Of old Hsroun al
Raschid was abroad in town-if it ever
has been-through the whole OF this
first wartime Yuletide. 1t seemed as
il every citizen with a dollar in his
pocket and a heart under his vest
was actively on the job. Christmas
Caliphs were to be encountered on
every corner. A man or woman who
was hungry and broke was as great a
prize as a child without a toy.
The Salvation Army, which this year
has devoted to war work every penny
that its cotton whiskered Santas ding
donged into the sidewalk kettles,
reached into its treasury funds for
the wherewithal to fill 1900 dinner
baskets with chickens. potatoes, bread,
coffee. tea, canned goods and the in
evitable "trimmin's.' Not only were
tho baskets distributed to the deserv-
ing needy from six stations nut
searching parties went out into the
bywavs TO the rescue Of those who
might have been overlooked.
Elks Cheer Children
At their clubhouse, in West Forty
third Street, the Elks gave presents to
70 less than three thousand children
warm sweaters with caps TO match, war
games for the boys and dolls for the
girls. and big California oranges for
everybody. That was the formal part,
that and the 4O-foot tree that would
have been 50-foot or 60-foot il IT wasn't
for the ceiling of the double decker
| lodge hall.
But individual Elks we're on the look
out for folks who looked as II money
would make the best sort Of present for
/ them. Dollar bills and five-dollar bills
( end ten-dollar bills seemed to be float
/ ing in the air as freely as the cotton
/ snowstorm that ragged about the tree
! without ever striking the floor over
| which the thousands of thin-soled and
no-soled shoes shufled.
/ The Elks had sent invitations to 1900
children and their parents. So many
/ more came that Forty-third Street be-
! tween Sixth Avenue and Broadway was
| iammed and in the hands of the police
| reserves most Of the afternoon. Five
/ hundred dinner baskets had been
| packed. They disappeared rapidly, and
/ a collection taken up on the spot pro-
/ vided two hundred more.
Down az the Brace Memorial News
/ boys Home. in the shadow Of the
| bridge. a couple of hundred kids tucked
/ their legs under turkey-laden tables.
| OF course, there isn't any such thing as
/ n poor newsboy nowadays. and hasn't
been hardly since Horatio Alger
finished writing "Tattered Tom But
| there are plenty of homeless Office boys
1 and apprentice boys and errand boys.
( That's the kind these were.
Newsies Have Joined L. $.
Last year there were six hundred
near-newsies al the diner. The shrink
age may be explained by the fact that
! the Newsboys' Home has sent $500 OF
its frequenters into Uncle Sans ser
vice within a very few months. all but
a handful as volunteers.
The quality and the quantity Of the
Z tulht!s anu bHt OlS uOiilEs bAab AOAlOHru
and the presents. didn't altogether lift
pail that hung over the festivities
William NJ. Fleiss, jr., the man who was
footing the bills, as his father footed
them for many years during his life
time, wasn't there. Up in his home, al
s West Eighty-eighth Street, he was
/ lying on a sick bed unconscious, per
haps dying. So the boys put their
thanks for the grub and the good time
in telegram OF coincidence 20 Mrs
Fleiss.
In Bellevue. where the patients in the
children's ward had their Christina:
tree party on Monday night, the nurse:
played Santa. They left a present al
every bedside.
Prisoners in the Tombs and lesser
jails throughout the city, like those a.
Sing Sing. had special Christmas din
ners. And there wasn't an orphan
asylum, hospital or settlement house IT
the city that didn't have its own par
ticular Santa and its own particular
! traa