210 THE COMPLETE SPORTSMAN 



of late from the neglect of the aristocracy, but 

 is still popular in the palaces of Kings, in 

 provincial households, and in the steward's 

 room. 



The comic card of greeting is fortunately 

 almost extinct. Our artists no longer depict 

 butcher-boys making butter slides for the poUce- 

 man, dogs running away mth sausages, or 

 elderly ladies falling headlong into snowdrifts — 

 subjects whose humour has long lost its pristine 

 freshness — though we still occasionally come 

 across pictures of cats in aeroplanes and spinsters 

 standing beneath the mistletoe passionately 

 waiting for someone to take liberties with them. 

 As a rule, indeed, we find nothing but the most 

 serious subjects portrayed upon the modern 

 Christmas card: King Arthur is starting forth 

 in quest of the Grail; King Alfred is suffering 

 from that attack of absent-mindedness which 

 proved him to be an indifferent stillroom-maid ; 

 King Charles is busy roosting in his favourite oak, 

 and so forth. While, for persons who are still 

 sentimentally inclined, there are always beauti- 

 ful snow-scenes, with a happy suggestion of 

 holly and Yule-logs in the foreground, and an 

 angel or two in the offing, inscribed with Tenny- 

 son's famous lines: 



" Ring out the old, ring in the new ! 

 Ring, happy bells, across the snow V 



