Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 301, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1917 — Page 2

How the World Keeps Christmas

Varying ways LqP x ‘ solemnityfo thisfyear cpn. gfatioji'of the Blessed''Cbildf; birth /will fe i heavily wit/rfadness thynugfoutC/bristeyidom'.-:-There yvillbe more of prayerfor/soface in grtef\ anePfora rayof hope indlespaip tfyari fheredotlh be of merry-making and extravagant gift-giving

aN MANY millions of homes this year there will be no merry tones in the bells that ring throughout the Christian world on Christmas day. To mothers, wives, sweethearts, who have lost sons, husbands, lovers, in the world madness, Christmas bells will sound as harsh, metallic clangor, crystallizing sadness and despair. Perhaps the women whose men are in the armies will receive in the music from the church towers messages of hope iind Inspiration. But speaking metaphorically, how the Yuletide bells ring and just when they ring, who rings them and how long, are matters of national taste that will seem queer to you if while you happen to be roystering in Spain, you think of Sweden kneeling in solemnity ; or in England eating your way through Christmas day, you consider the Russians chanting the myths of the Goddess of the Sun, or in Italy listening to the children reciting their godly pieces in the streets, you remember New York and its theaters with “special Christmas performances.” Christmas in England never has regained the measure of pure revelry it held before the reformation. Only the remnants of those hearty‘times when the land was glutted with epicurean richness are what are left for old England today, but these are enough to make the celebration distinct in its ponderosity. Wherever Christmas is found in the British isles there is a Ilium pudding, that heaviest of edibles that seems to Improve in taste with every pound tipped off on the scales. In Ireland they accompany a generous slice with long drinks of what they call “lamb’s-wool,” made by bruising roasted apples mixed with ale or milk. If food and drink are the greater parts of jollity, there are no merrier Christmases in the land than these in England. But there is little Christmas lore and superstition. Now and then you will hear some old fireside crony drone away about the bad consequences of a red and dusky New Year’s day, or peer out anxiously for the first visitor, whose sex determines good or ill luck during the coming year. The authors have put into rhyme just what you would do if you were passing your Christmas day with the British:

Ak Christmas time we deck the hall With holly branches brave and tall. With sturdy pine and hemlock bright, And in the Yule-log's dancing light We tell old tales of field and fight At Christmas time. At Christmas time we pile the board With flesh and fruit and vintage stored, ‘ And ’mid the laughter and the glow We tread a measure soft and slow, And kiss beneath the mistletoe At Christmas time. Germany has no long years of rlotChristmases to look back upon. There is no country in peace times where the celebration is more wholesomely merry than in Germany. The Germans begin a week before Christmas day to bring in evergreens of air sizes which they pile up in the public squares of the cities and towns until these look like forests of pines and hemlocks. Not one tree, but two, each German family must have and those too poor to buy them ard'assisted by those who have plenty. St. Nicholas is the old fellow at the bottom of this seasonal merriment. On the eve of St. Nicholas day, December 6, the Christmas festival begins. That is the day when the German children behave! For a man who is good at keeping secret’s impersonates the saint and goes around inquiring' how the children have acted during the year. He curries a bundle of birch switches with him and leaves them in the homes where he thinks they may be needed. The dtfy before Christmas in Germany (peace time Germany,, remember) the mothers trim the house from top to bottom with strings of frosted Christmas cakes and railing greens. When it comes to trimming the Christmas trees themselves, then you may play out in the yard, take a walk, or get out of the way somewhere, for this is secret business between motherland Kris Kringle. On

Sky Signs in London.

The failure of the siren to rise above the “roar of London” has caused the authorities to experiment with sky signs. Once before the government, experienced a difficulty In warning London of the approach of an enemj; At the time when Napoleon threatened England with invasion elaborate preparations were made to cut the mala roads leading to London. The warning for the City Fencibles to proceed with then? operations was to be given from the coast the moment the French

tables under the trees are the gifts, surprising gifts they would seem to some —a soap-rose, an artificial flower, knitted lace, a Christmas cake, or a sausage or cheese. Most of them have verses attached, written In curious meter. Not until six a’clock in the evening are the doors open for the festivity of the trees. Tonight the horses and cows of the German farmers have peculiar gifts. It is said that the cattle kneel on Christmas eve and say a few animal prayers. It is a very great sin to listen to their conversation, else it would be recorded here.

If reindeer could talk on Christmas eve, the ones that pull the family sleighs of the Lapps of Lapland, what wouldn’t they tell of long journeys over ice and snow for days before Christmas in order to have their masters and the children at church on Christmas morning! Miles over the snow come the people of the North to hear the - familiar monotoned message of the birth of the Christchild from their pastors. There is no lightness in this ceremony, nor any gifts for the children, nor gay music. The tent or hut homes are filled with guests for the Christmas holidays, so full that there is no room for evergreens or candles. They take their Christmas with faces as solemn as mummies and make the attendant ceremonies as unjoyful as possible. Marriages are performed during the season, children are sent to school for a few weeks, babies are christened, the dead are buried, and liquor Is sent around with.lavishness. This is Christmas for the Lapps. Who will change with them? Norway outside of Lapland has a more joyous time of it. Norwegian children have Christmas trees and little gifts that are hidden in out-of-the-way corners for them to find. Every bird in Norway must know of an approaching Christmas', for the boys and girls tie oats and corn on the trees, the fences, the tops of houses and barns, and on high poles they erect in their yards so that the birds may feast with them. What a chattering there must be in Norway on Christmas morning! After a day of feasting and church services, little boys with white mantles and star-shaped lanterns, carrying dolls to represent the Virgin Mary and the Christchild, sing carols in the homes. Strolling musicians serenade at twilight. To be clean for Christmas is the problem that haunts the Swedish housewife. For days she scours and scrubs and washes. Not a piece of trimming or furniture is left unpolished. All dirt is sinful, and must not be tolerated at this holy season. While the cleaning is going on, there is the; baking of Christmas breads, ringshaped, that must dry under the beams for a week or two, and the brewing of spiced drinks. A wine that the Swedish women make with almonds and spices is an aromatic quaff with a holiday smell. Never can there be a proper Christmas in Sweden without home-made cheeses, especially the sweet ones made of boiled sweet milk < and molded' fantastically-. Santa Claus appears in person to Swedish children and distributes his sled of gifts. When he has disappeared as mysteriously as he came, they join hands and sing Christmas jingles until they work up a fine appetite for Christmas mush, an indispensable sweet—rice boiled a long time in milk with cinnamon and sukar, with blanched almonds for flavor, to be eaten with cream. Christmas fish in Sweden has, the same share of respectability that rare roast beef ha? in England. It is buried for days in wood ashes, then boiled and served with hot milk. Sled parties of forty or fifty sleds each go. to church on Christmas morning, with the ringing oflobg rows of sleigh bells and festive trappings. The day itself Is one of .peace and quiet. But on the next day the fun begins, and continues unfit all their four holidays are over—Christmas, the day after,' the twelfth day, and the twentieth. The ceremony of untrimming the tree is as much of a frolic as its decoration. There are no house greens to take down, because this is their sign of mourning, but there are flowers if they can be obtained. ■ ‘

transports were sighted. Various means of communicating the warning were tried, and in the end it was dethat beacons should be used by night and smoke clouds by day. Many false alarms were given, but though Napoleon’s troops were on the point of embarking on more than one occasion they never left' Boulogne.—Dundee Advertiser.

Cowhide Horseshoes.

Horseshoes. of cowhide are, it is said, made in Australia.

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN. RENSSELAER. IND. t

Christmas turkeys In Denmark are geese that share honors at the Christmas feast with a special kind of cake. The salt-cellar remains on 4he table throughout Yuletide just to tiphold tradition. At midnight on Christmas eve those who have fruit trees take lanterns and a stick and find their way into the orchards. Each tree is struck three times by the head of the house with the injunction, “Rejoice and be fruitful.” No one who can possibly avoid it works from Christmas until after New Year’s day.

“Greetings for the Lord’s birth” is the Russian way of saying, “Merry Christmas,” to which the answer is, “God be with you.” Besides celebrat-. ing the nativity, the Russians cherish a mystical lore of the Goddess of the Sun, who, at Christmas time, was supposed to enter her sledge, dressed in gorgeous robes and headdress, and ► turn her horses toward summer. Here and there in the great country a village maiden, dressed in white and drawn on a sledge from house to house, represents the Goddess of the Sun, while her retinue sing carols. After attending a Christmas eve service in church, Russians set out to have a frolicking Christmas in a community way. One who has a large house invites many other households, which come bringing cakes and othpr sweets. They would freeze in their sledges rather than alight before receiving the greetings of host and hostess. There are a large feast, games, snowballing, and recitations and songs, sometimes lasting throughout the night. One wonders how revolutionary Russia, anarchistic and warworn, will celebrate the Holy Child’s birth this year. France has a quiet Christmas, giving less prominence to it than to any of -the other days in the holiday calendar. Old folks in the provinces tell about times when Christmas was a gay season, celebrated with great romp and joy. The shopkeepers furbish their stalls for the gift season, and the confectioners make those delicious little cakes with sugar forms of the Christchild on top. Scraps of Yuletide tradition are dearly held in the homes of some of the peasants. The ashes of the great Yule log are thought to be protection against lightning and bad luck; the old log has magic power to fill with peppermints shoes left beside it, and its ashes dropped into medicine have wonderful curative.powers. French children have Christmas trees and little cradles made of evergreens, representations of the holy manger. France sings carols through the whole month of December, strolling musicians playing their Noels from house to.i hoflse. The presence of American’soldiers there this year undoubtedly will alter the ancient customs of the people somewhat. Christmas in Italy means a children’s season, wherein the little folks reconsecrate themselves by singing and reciting pieces in the streets, and in Spain it means no end of social gayety among the young folks, almost to the point of such roystering as Americans indulge in on Hallowe’en. In America it seems to be a gala combination of these old-world customs and others with a little «more lavishness and good-time display. —From “Yuletide in Many Lands,” by Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann.

His Little Jest.

“I thought you were an ardent food conservationist —signed the pledge and all that.” “That’s true.” “Then why complain so loudly when I phone yoq that I won’t be home to dinner?”

Probably So.

“That fellow robbed me once.” “He robbed me, too.” “Fate will overtake him some time." “J dunno.” “Huh?” “I’ve given up most of my ideas about getting revenge. L’ve come to the conclusion that fate must nolle pros quite a few' cases.’,,’

A True Philosopher.

“What is the philosopher's stone?” “I guess that is the stone we don’t chuck at the other fellow." :

Sleeves Reflect World’s History

New York.—As the current of clothes goes rushing by, one has a strong temptation to reach out and grasp at the straws that are swirling along on the top eddies. Standing on the bank and watching the brilliant borne down the stream, one is strongly reminded of an alluring article by Mr. Beebe, the explorer, who has brought back so much that was worth while to the zoological knowledge in America. y Mr> Beebe rests quietly on a bank, as he tells it, by which passes a great, swiftly flowing stream which comes from the heart of the jungle and which is full of mystery and color and

This suit is of cream velours stitched with the same shade of silk and trimmed with sealskin. The coat is fastened on the bias and ripples at the back.

splendid exotic life. The stream has caught on its top current parts of this life, and as he;studies it, keenly and with knowledge, as it swiftly goes by him, he is able to form in his mind: just what the life of that special jungle is. Fauna and flora go by, an opossum with its young, a peculiar kind of snake on a log, bits of wood that explain the tree growth, birds that have been caught in branches and cannot extricate themselves. On, on goes the colorful stream, rushing past the flat mud bank and explaining to the zoologist and ornithologist the entire life and personality of the source from which all these things come. It is thus in fashions. All the tumult, the revolt, the color, the perconality and the life of a country flow by in this semi-annual stream of clothes that are symbols of their sources. And the one who stands on the bank wants to reach Out a hand or throw out a grappling pole, as Mr. Beebe did, and bring in for closer observation the. peculiar and particular things that can be developed into a whole chapter of interest.

Sleeves From Every Epoch. Sleeves, for instance. There is a detail that one w’ants to catch at with a grappling pole, pull into the bank and study for a week. They are representative of the history of the world. Each epoch seems to have offered a peculiar phase of arm covering for the designers to incorporate into modern costumes. ' We have the medieval sleeve which opens after it leaves the qlbow and drops in a point to the knee; we have the Chinese sleeve which is roomy enough for all the juggling we care to do; there is the tight sleeve of the Directoire that fits into an oversnug armhole and stretches to the knuckles of the hand; there is the Italian sleeve that begins in an armhole that is nearly at the elbow and widens itself out in order that It may drop in cloakllke folds to the wrist, where it Is caught into « band of white velvet or cloth. There is the sleeve that Is slashed from armhole to wrist, as Marguerite and Faust wore It, and there is the

Oriental sleeve that is formed from the front edge of a cape and confined to the arm with a bracelet of tulle or jewels. Another sleeve is merely a brassard and, of course, it is on an evening gown. There are sleeves taken from the church, from comic opera, from the Round Table, from Wagnerian legends, from the days of Dante and, one might almost add, from the Sultan of Sulu. There are sleeves that ate nothing but arm bands above and below the elbow, to which are caught swing’ug folds of colored tulle.

Possibly the one garment which the sleeve-mad designers have left untouched in their wild orgy of designing is the street coat which is part of a conventional tailored suit. All sorts of liberties are taken with sleeves In top coats, because this garment has reached so high on the ladder of .fashion that it gets a whack of originality from every designer who wants to play with the garment in either a commercial or arCstic way. The short street coat, ho.wever, remains conventional. So little has been ■done with this garment in the line of originality that we begin to believe that the French influence dominates even in this line of American costumery. Paris, as you remember, insisted that she could do little with the coat suit because her tailors were wielding hand grenades Instead of scissors. Variety In Armholes. It Is not possible to deal with sleeves, in detail or in mass, without taking the armhole into serious consideration. The tailors and dressmakers talk in an interesting manner about this alleged minor part of the costume. It Is a pity, one might say in passing, that there are any cutters and fitters who treat it as a minor consideration, for the average woman knows that the skill or awkwardness in cutting an armhole makes or mars the fit of the frock and her individual comfort. There are few people who can restrain their tempers when the subject of armholes is mentioned, because the extraordinary deficiency of talent in this particular line of dressmaking reaches out into the dally lives of thousands. Let us hope that the cutters of this winter will have learned more than they knew last winter, if they are going to attempt a dozen instead of two varieties.

There is the tight Directolre armhole that hugs the skin so that the fronts of the coat or bodice must be perfectly adjusted in order that they will not rise in waves about the neck. There is the long, loose Chinese armhole w’hlch demands a certain lack of contour in the bodice or jacket. There is the pear-shaped armhole which extends to the waistline and into which an elbow-length or threequarter sleeve is usually placed. And. topping the list of comfortable armholes, is the one that belongs to the lining and not to the bodice. New Type Saves Temper. If you have had trouble with the fit of your jackets and blouses because of ill-cut armholes, remember that this last type saves temper and tears. When the sleeve is put into the armhole of the lining and the outer material is allowed to drop over it, moving with security and freedom according to the shifting of the shoulders, then you get the best armhole that the American tailors can achieve. This is the kind that is now in high fashion. It is run well over the top of the arm and up on the lining, in order that there may be no revealing of the inside material when the outer armhole swings to and fro. Some dressmakers use a band of embroidery or soutaching or ornamented cloth of some kind over the lining from the

This Egyptian evening gown is made of black satin covered with fine black lace and broad bands of black net embroidered with gold and Jet. The panels are weighted with Jet fringe.

edge of the armhole half way to the front, in order that the effect is good when the outer armhole shifts. The recognition given by the designers to this armhole-dn the lining has been the reason for an influx of sleeves made of different material from the gown fabric and also in a different color. Street frocks of heavy cloth wll have ’ long, tight sleeves of braide t satin running from shoulder to wrist They do not make a shocking contrast in color, but depart from the tone of the gown sufficiently to give an artistic touch. (Copyright, McClur. New,paper Syndicate.)

Three-Quarter Length Sleeves.

Three-quarter length sleeves and elbow length gloves were a feature of several smart afternoon dresses at • recent wedding. „

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Lots Yet to Be Done.

There may come a time when you’ll be ashamed to admit that all you did In the great war was to buy a few Liberty bonds. —Exchange.

The Quinine That Deee Not Effect Head § ecause of Its tonic and laxative effect. Laxative romo Quinine can be taken by anyone wltbont causing nervousness or ringing In the head. There Is only one “Bromo Quinine. & W. GBOVJIB signature Is on box 80c.

A Touch of Nature.

The scene is a crowded bus. A soldier, back from the trenches, sitting in a corner near the entrance, put his hand into his pocket for his fare, and pulls out a shilling and some coppers. The bus jolts violently and, to the soldier’s dismay, the shilling slips from his fingers just as the lights go out, as they always do In London, In these days, when a bridge Is being crossed. The passengers with one accord begin to grope for the soldier’s shilling. “’Frald It rolled off, mate,” says the conductor. Then lights go up again, and discover three passengers each holding out the shilling.—Christian Science Monitor.

No Reason for Complaint.

Sergeants are seldom at a loss for an apt remark. A raw recruit, the sleeves of w’hose tunic were six Inches too long, and whose trousers sagged more than Charlie Chaplin’s, presented himself before his noncommissioned officer and compalned of the fit. “Nonsense 1” 'retorted the sergeant. “Why, it fits absolutely lovely. You look as If you’d been melted and poured In I”

The Luxurious One.

“Does your husband complain of your economy?” “No," she replied, “the trouble and expense arise from the fact that we have to arrange extra meals for the kitchen to keep the cook from leaving.”

A Good Preliminary.

“Goode tells me his daughter 18 going to marry a title.” “Has he had It examined?”

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