142 MORE POT-POURRI 



When children receive too many presents at the same 

 time, it is apt to encourage criticism and ingratitude ; and 

 having to thank for what they do not want or already 

 possess is too early a training in what might seem to a 

 child hypocrisy. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth is 

 excellent and reasonable to those who understand it, but 

 neither in word nor idea does it convey anything to a 

 child's mind. I heard two delicious child anecdotes last 

 winter. One was of a village schoolboy helping to decor- 

 ate a Christmas-tree for himself and his schoolfellows. 

 He made a touching appeal to the kind but tired lady 

 who was doing the same : ' Please, teacher, if you have 

 anything to do with it, will you see that I get something 

 that is not a pocket-handkerchief? I've got seven 

 already ! ' Sad to say, his eighth pocket-handkerchief 

 had been assigned to him, and he had to put up with 

 it. The other story was of a rich little lady who was 

 taken to a neighbour's Christmas-tree. On receiving a 

 new doll she said to her mother : ' Eeally, I don't know, 

 mother, what I shall do with this doll. I have so many 

 already, how can I find room for her ? ' 



It goes against my sense of the fitness of things to put 

 either charity or affection into a treadmill and force 

 people to give presents at a particular fixed time. Do we 

 not all know the phraseology so often heard in the 

 shops : ' Will this do ? Does it look enough ? It won't 

 be much use, but that doesn't matter. Oh ! here's a 

 new book that will do for So-and-so.' I heard of a 

 wretched lady with rather well-known tastes in one 

 direction who last Christmas received seven copies of one 

 book. Then there are the presents for dependents, which 

 are chosen in imitation of the luxuries of the master and 

 mistress. The sham jewel brooch or the shoddy Glad- 

 stone bag which costs fifteen shillings and is supposed to 

 ' look like thirty.' All this kind of thing seems to me 



