SANTA CLAUS. 
437 
days. In this part of the country he is very well known. One 
has regular applications on Christmas-eve for permission to hang- 
up stockings about the chimney for Santa Glaus to fill ; Sunday- 
scholars and other little folk come stocking in hand as a matter of 
course, and occasionally grown persons follow their example. It 
seems at first rather singular that Santa Claus should especially 
favor stockings and chimneys ; one cannot easily account for the 
fancy ; but a notion of this sort has spread far and wide. In 
France the children put their shoes on the hearth Christmas-eve, 
with the hope that during the night they will be filled with sugar- 
plums by the "Bon-Homme Noel," who is evidently a twin 
brother of Santa Claus. But these are matters in which experi- 
ence sets reason at defiance. The children will all tell you that 
Santa Claus comes down the chimney — in this part of the world 
he will even squeeze through a stove-pipe — and that he fills 
stockings with good things, always looking after that particular 
part of their wardrobe, though why he should do so remains a 
mystery yet unfathomed. It seems a silly notion, perhaps. If 
you belong to the wondrous-wise school, you will probably de- 
spise him for it ; a sensible man, you will say, would put the sugar 
plums in the child's pocket, or leave them with the parents. No 
doubt of it ; but Santa Claus is not a sensible man ; he is a funny, 
jolly little old Dutchman, and he and the children understand each 
other perfectly well. Some of us believe that he comes down 
the chimney expressly to make wise people open their eyes at the 
absurdity of the thing, and fills stockings because you would 
never dream of doing so yourself ; and there cannot be a doubt 
that the little people had much rather receive their toys and 
sugar-plums by the way of the chimney than through the door, 
