"THE NIGHT BEFORE--"

"Dec. 25, 1685. Friday. Carts come to town, and Shops open as usual. Some, somehow, observe the day, but are vexed, I believe, that the Body of People profane it,--and blessed be God! no authority yet to compell them to keep it."

This excerpt from the diary of that old Puritan, Samuel Sewall, shows how completely the order of the English Parliament in 1644 put an end to merry Christmas. All the hoary customs were forced to hide their faces for very shame, and none of them dared to reappear, except on Merrymount, until dour Cromwell was succeeded by the lively Charles. Then one by one they came back until in 1719 Sewall mournfully writes "New England men came hither to avoid anniversary days, the keeping of them, such as the twenty-fifth of December."

But one custom never returned. That was the Christmas box of the English poor. Before the Reformation every poor apprentice, journeyman, pardoner, and begging friar had his Christmas box, and into it the merry Englanders deposited their alms. Then on Christmas Eve, when the box had got full and heavy, the poor apprentice and his like would break the box open and thereupon have a jolly Christmas. Only the tightest Scrooge refused its invitation, and always was he followed by six months of bad luck.

There are no apprentices, limitors, or pardoners today and no "Christmas boxes". But there are Red Cross Seals, the Salvation Army, and the old woman organ grinder sitting on the sidewalk. These may be left to Santa Claus by any one who believes in him, but only men on the Dean's list can afford six months of bad luck.