Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1918-12-26
CITY SANTA CLAUS
BRINGS MUCH JOY
Provides Christmas Goodies for
500 Children Distributed
by Police Matron.

An unknown Municipal Santa Claus y
| has, for the past 20 years, made happy a
number Of Wilmington children. While
the impression seems to be that a number
of persons made contributions which were
yesterday given out at the police stntion,
the truth Of the matter is, MS Mfs. Opdyke,
matron, tells IT., one man made the entire
| contribution. Five hundred bags were
filled with nuts. fat wnlnuts, a big, rcd
checked apple, an orange, pound box OF
candy, and n pair of stockings, and dis
tributed among the children Of the needy,
who might otherwise have no Christmas
at all
The policemen At headquarters, Mon
day night, were busy until o'clock the
next Morning filling the bags, which were
woven by the girls Of the Industrial School
Under the supervision Of Mn. Mary
Davis, matron on duty that night, these
big, burly cops put goodies INTO little
bags, getting pretty weary toward morn
ing, but happy, nevertheless,
On Tuesday Mrs Davis went about on
the East Side distributing the bapx at the
cmldrens homes, and covmed tho West
Side, visiting so many homes that she
could not finish her work on Tuesday, but
had some further visits to make yesterday
morning.
The usual procedure in giving out these
bags had been TO give each policeman 10
tickets to distribute in lus district This
was an unsatisfactory arrangement, be
cause the policeman stationed at mil
lionaires' row had just as many tickets to
give out as the one in the really poor
section of the citv.
For example, Patrolman Collins, sta
toned over Eleventh street bridge, with
ten tickets, might be visited by family
of 10 children, who wanted those tickets,
and then where would the rest of the
youngsters be? Also many who were not
needy, but wanted the goodies as extra
gifts, came 10 the station house with their
ticket and got their bags.
This year the chief of police, working
with the visiting nurses, Peoples Settle
ment and the Associated Charities, re-
ceived the names of the needy from these
associations, and tagged the bags with
the family name, and the matrons went
about in automobiles and deposited the
bags at the children's homes Although
the bags this year were only half rs many
as usual, due TO the high prices of the
nuts, candy, stockings. and fruit, it was
distributed so efficiently that there were
some left over.
These were taken TO the Old Ladies'
Home, and the members were just as glsd
to get them as the youngsters at the
Children's Home.
In tn assembly hall of police head
quarters stands large tree, seen yester-
day by crowds of children and their
parents, and TO be on view for the next
two weeks to any one who cares to sec it.
II is very tall. reaching to the high ceiling
OF the room, and trimmed with everything
young people like TO see on tree pretty
infant dolls with long clothes, little girl
and little boy dolls, and very near the
top paper Santa. Here and there hid
den green or red electric bulb gives out
gay colors
The matrons have had no holidays. but
they felt happy over the mission they had
accomplished Yesterday On Monday
night the Municipal Santa, who prefer
to remain incognito because of modesty,
visited the station while the men were
filling the bags, and from hs happy face
il was plain that he had gwen himself
Merry Christmas as well as the 500
youngsters who got the gifts. Chief of
Police Black this morning expressed him.
self as thoroughly satisfied with yester-
days work. and believed the new method
had worked out very well.