New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-01-07

in the vino. - WOMAN Sis hhA~g4AS VI wv
ing in each one and waits for people to buy
her toys or her sticky sweets-the rain VII
leak in on them--or her pathetic little laces
The toys are not very gay. There is httI'
there except the cynical or stupid caricatur'
Of horror-cannons, guns, bayonets, bombs
the whole sinister outfit of destruction. Here
are marionettes armed TO the teeth and max
ing murderous gestures, wounded marionette'
breathing their last In hospital stretchersi
marionettes on their knees, raising their
arms In prayers for mercy. Here are ruins
in cardboard, destroyed villages in cardboard
trenches and battlefelds in cardboard, real
stic even to vermilion spots OF blood. Nea'
me a solder-a real one-cries out in sick
ness and disgust:
"Ah, mince, lis men ont done pas asset
! Then they haven't enough Of il YETI.
But yes, they have enough Of it. II is no.
because they love war that they give THEN
children these things Of war. But wher
people have been thinking of nothing else
for so long time it comes out in everything
they touch. It is obsession.
The playthings OF three years ago are
worn out It is hard to remember what
Christmas used 70 be. There were bells and
flowers and holly and mistletoe and candles;
dear, round, woody toys wonderful windows
full Of delightful animals and little round
noses pressed fiat against the panes; there
was Pere Noel, and "p'pa' came home with
Christmas tree and pockets mysteriously
bulging All that is ever so long ago.
Now Christmas for the MONIES" means
bigger armies Of soldiers, more lead boches
to Stay, more crown princes and kaisers to
annihilate or to blow up and make squeak
in the shape Of funny little balloon Whistles;
more submarines, more aeropanes.
It means sending packages Of chocolate and
tobacco and pressed chicken and woollen
things to "le p'ps," who, it seems, is a prs
oner in Germany or in the trenches in the
yosges or on a ship in some faraway sea.
The bigger boys in horizon blue jackets
and helmets say 20 the hitler children, scorn-
fully: Huh, You don't remember the time
when there wasn't the war;" And all the
little girls wear white scarves on their heads
or II they live in the slums, white rags
and play at being danes de la Croix Rouge.
Such battles as there are in the Bois Such
Glasses aux Boches in the Champs Eysees.
Such torpedong and mining and blowing up
Of ships as goes in the pond of Marie dc
Medici, in the Luxembourg.
It gives every one, except the children
themselves, the csfard, and especially the
soldiers who come back for few days. "Ah
mince, lis men ont done pas asset" they
say sadly.
For the second time in the century there
will be no midnight mass celebrated in tho
churches of Paris on Christmas The story
of the infant Jesus, with the naive and charm
ing tablesus Of the manger and the magi, the
mystery Of the night strewn with stars, the
Illuminated basilics, the voices OF organs and
choirs, tho watch that proceeds the Office and
the reyeillon that follows all these old
traditions are TO be abandoned. They arc
given up because they mean the lighting and
heating Of many churches during many hours
and all that light and heat must be saved 70,
making ammunition; and because OF the
danger in the black streets Of Paris for those
who would come out OF the churches in the
hour after midnight.
This is the second time that the Partisan.
will have been deprived By the Germans O.
The celebration in their secular rites Of The
fsie de Noel. The first time was in toe siege
Of 1870.
For just one reason have told all thes,
dreary things-to say at the end that they
stand It all-the deprivation, the fatigue. the
csfard-with an endurance, with a logged
ness, that amounts 70 miracle.