N^SAIMMGIAIISEiGTOPIKS ! pzn=:j~-Tin ST come for a trip to Toyland and § TT H ' a^(; a :l ' 'be many delightful 9 CJp I presents which Santa Claus pre- B I pared for enriching the youthful Christmas. His enchanted castle, ■libels! brilliantly lighted is filled with an SlasTflUl CJl,lllcss variety of toys; and as the visitor passes through the main lljmilfl avenues in this wonderful world 1 *2) /pM the spectacle becomes more and jQq (gpu more entrancing. Numberless fairy lamps Uad the way to where the mechanical and electrical toys are stored; and what an imposing array they make! The place seems lull of motor ears, motor omnibuses a*4 motor boats, darting here, there and evtvy**ere, at the bidding of their miniature drivers. The wireless tele graph is busy sending messages, and Hit Wims hursl machine with its glssler tube iw produc ing the most beautiful colors us though by lightning. Close at hand are scores of different kinds ■of steam engines—models of perfection—to gether with railway carriages, stations, tunnels, signals, and all the rest cf it, just like a real railway. Over there we catch a glimpse of the X-rays, a complete plating machine, and hundreds of electrical toys which are going to be all the racce tills season among those who can lie favored with costly playthings. Some of the engines come to as much as ton guineas; but the smaller models can be had for a very tri fling sum. An adjoining room wears quite a military aspect, with its thousands of leaden soldiers in full dress, looking very fierce and brave. No doubt they will be pleased to receive march ing orders, and show what they can do with their rifles, swords, and real cannon. You can tell they are like real soldiers, because they don't seem to mind a bit being placed in the midst of all sorts of animals, such as elephants, lions, tigers, bears, leopards and monkeys. The elephants trumpet, the lions and tigers roar, the bears growl, the horses neigh, the donkeys bray, the dogs bark, the cats meow, and all the rest do their full share towards swelling the uproar, but It makes no difference' to the soldiers. A little further on taxlcabs dodge in and out of miniature garages, and skillfully steer their way between London county council elsctric trams. All the drivers are really very clever in Toyland. A long line of spirited rocking-horses and prancing gee-goes marks the way to the dolls' palaces. This is essentially the girls' domain. It Is scarcely possible to conceive anything which is not here represented. Some of the houses are large enough to be called mansions. They are provided with a complete staff of ser vants, an ample lurder. a thousand and one little com forts, and, to round oft the luxury of it all, a smart motor car slands at the front en trance, awaiting the appearance of my lord and lady. Was there ever such a show of dolls seen before? They seem to be everywhere, display ing their finery. The undress doll is away on a top shelf, because the popular doll must be in the fashion in the way of dress. The adult doll, with hair done in the latest style, is one of the features of the place. Baby dolls are apt to be tiresome, but the grown-ups are always on their best behavior. Of course, the universal ambition to soar in the air is repiesented in Toyland, otherwise the place would be incomplete; tops which fly up to the ceiling, tops which sing in the air. plums, apples, pears, and other fruit dance about r.T'-st gayly. Swimming men, dancing Scotehmi-n, snowballs stuffed with small toys, and humpty-dumpty circuses come in view as you wander along; while games galore call aloud for inspection. Toyland certainly never v.v»s so full of splendid things for those who can spend dollars and cents. Take another turn, however, and we come to Tiny Town, where the purchasing power of the penny is best represented. Sets of kitchen utensils, traction engines, gunboats, cruisers, motor omnibuses, railway engines, black smiths. sawyers, county council trams, light houses, dancing ballet girls, dolls' furniture, sewing sets, gold fishes in globes, minus the elaborate mechanism of tho more expensive type, but all made to work. Comical figures, magnetic divers, shooting galleries, skin ani mals, and hundreds of musical contrivances are priced at a few cents. In the course of a short ramble through Toy land it is impossible for us to see all that is to be seen, but it Is clear that Santa Claus has never had such a busy time in making ar rangements for his Christmas eve visit. The season—according to the great toy em poriums whose wonderful stocks are reviewed above —will probably make a record from the business standpoint. Each succeeding year brings a growth in the demand for better class toys; and it is a happy circumstance that the English maker is awakening to the possibility of big business in this direction. The German snatched the soldier trade from the French, and for years maintained a prac tical monopoly; but in turn the German has been completely ousted by the Englishman. In some of the largest toy places in London tills Christmas not a single foreign mado sol dier will be sold. The same success is appar ently awaiting English enterprise In regard to dolls' houses. Germany s-tlll holds the Held as regards dolls. CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY DECEMBER 10, 1908. a change. Games bid fair to become extremely popular. Diabolo, or "the devil on two sticks,' has already captured Paris, and the demand in London suggests the likelihood of its be coming a great craze there. At a moment when the toy industry in France is on the wane, the famous caricaturist Caran d'Ache conies to the rescue. Being medically forbidden to follow his art, he turned, as a hobby, to making wooden animals. Unable to repress the humorous strain in his soul, he im parted to his creations a mirth-provoking char acter which has already made them the rage of Paris; and to judge from the Burlington Ar cade they will ere long become quite a craze in London. From the cheap mechanical toy which im pedes our progress through the streets, as dis played on the pavement by the enterprising camelot, to the wonderful creations which the Nain Bleu, that paradise of French children for nearly a century, has provided for the pam pered darlings of the wealthy, the predominat ing element in the French toy of to-day is mechanical ingeunity. Xever has this been more noticeable than in the novelties which the manufacturers are preparing for the coming holidays. The average French maker of toys scorns to offer the little ones such simple things as our childhood knew; and the wooden doll and woolly baa-lamb are to be found only in the poorer districts. Dolls made of wood there are, but the wood is only a casing for wonder ful works, and the lamb must be life-size, and able at least to frisk. Among the more expensive toys, and one which will give the small boy with a gun an opportunity to prove himself a crack shot, is the pigeon shooting device, which is an attrac tive novelty. Upon a pole about eight feet in height a cross-bar is affixed, much after the fashion of a parrot's perch, except that the cross-piece is mobile, and is made to swing in a circular diioction by means of a simple arrangement of weights like those of a cuckoo clock. At each end of the cross-bar is a colored cardboard pigeon, with outspread wings. The machinery is set in motion, and a well-directed shot from a toy gun knocks the bird down. Miniature automobiles there are in plenty, but the latest thing in the toy motor-car line is run by electricity, and has, if you please, a powerful electric headlight and movable hood. It is doubtful, however, if oven so mag nificent a plaything as this ran have the at traction for the up-to-date youngster which was provided by the little tin "automobile a catastrophe" which was the great novelty of last Christinas, and promises to be popular but in the course of tinio even this phase of Toyland may undergo again this year. This diminutive car held two doll passengers, the chauffeur and his lady. You wound it up, and it sped along the floor right merrily for a few yards, when suddenly there was a terrible shock —the catastrophe! The car came to pieces, and the unfortunate oc cupants were hurled into the air and fell in pitiful heaps beside the machine. Sometimes the realism was so intense that the luckless motorists fell under the shattered machine, and then their fate was too horrible to dwell upon. You picked up the pieces, and put them to gether, and revived the doll corpses, and set the car going again, and so on. You could have the most exciting accidents all day long. Hut automobiles are vieux jeu now, and even steering balloons of the Santos Dumont type no longer find favor with the toy manufac turers. This Christmas, the Petit Noel —who Is the French child's Santa Claus —will seatte# toy aeroplanes along his path. To be sure, they have to be suspended by a string from the chandelier, but if the string is a black thread it is hardly visible, and the illusion nuite successful. Apropos of flying things, the top of that de nomination which figures among the novelties is a most fascinating affaif, though why "top" is not clear. A light metal disc made to repre sent a bird or a butterfly, with wing-tips upon a ring, is placed upon the floor. What appears to be a wand, finished with a rubber cup, is pressed against the center of the disc and briskly withdrawn. The disc whirls rapidly and rises in the air, flying off in various direc tions. Since the French caricaturists' exhibition this spring, when Caran d'Ache's wooden toys created a furore, and all the world of fashion flocked to see the show ai»d admire his "regi ment of General Boum," the celebrated artist's toys have become a craze with grown folk and children alike. The playthings which Caran d'Ache has fash ioned in wood for the season of gifts are in the form of groups representing hunting parties in which European rulers are the principal figures. Thus we see his majesty, King Edward, arrayed in kilts, accompanied by a brawny Highlander, shooting over the moors. Wondering pheas ants, like barnyard fowl, are grouped at the hunter's feet, and gaze in astonishment at the alert dogs, which point in most thorough fash ion. The tzar in pursuit of native game, and the president of France at Rambouillet, have also inspired Monsieur d'Ache. While children of all nationalities still cling fondly to Teddy bears, their elders in France are indulging youthful fancies in the purchase of Caran d'Ache's, dogs; and many are the Frenchmen'.'; desks \vl ich this Jour de l'An will see adorned wi'li one of these delightful pups. DIGNIFIED IN NAME HAVE BEEN THE MI9TRESSEB OF THE WHITE HOUSE But One Woman Hat Had High Honor of Being the Wife of One and the Mother of Another President. Fame In fleeting enough In the cas<* of men. but when II eomes to Women 'hp goddess Is twice as fickle. Almost any public school pupil more than ton years old can repent the nanu s of tho presidents of the t'nlted State*, t»iit how ninny know the presidents' wives? Doubtless ftO per cent, of the adult population is unable to name oft hand more than n half dozen women whose husbands occupied the White House. Everybody knows Martha Washing ton was Mrs. Custis when she was married to the Father of His Country, but how many remember her maiden name was Dandridgo? There aro dozens of families throughout the coun try which, if heraldry obtain In Amer ica, would be entitled to emblazon the nation's shield on their coat-of-arms by reason of having been connected with presidents through their ances tresses. They represent the names of Dandridge, Custis, Smith, Wayles. Skelton, Payne, Todd, Kortwright, Johnson, Donelson, Hobards, Hoes. Symmes, Christian, Gardiner, Chil dress, Powers, Carmichael, Mcintosh, Appleton, McCardle, Dent, Webb, Ru dolph. Herndon, Folsom, Scott, Lord, Dimmick, Saxon, Lee and Carow. And those are only names of presi dents' wives. The mothers of the presidents, beginning with Washing ton's, originally bore the surnames Hall, Boylston, Randolph, Conway, Jones. Smith, Hutchinson, Hoes, Bas sett, Armistead, Knox, Stroller, Mil lard, Kendricks, Speer, Hanks, MeDon ough, Simpson, Birchard, Ballou, Stone, Neal, Irwin, Allison and Bul lock. Only one woman had the honor of being both the wife and the mother of presidents. She was Abigail Smith, who was married to John Adams, the second president, and whose son, John Quincy Adams, became the sixth president. Another woman, Eliza beth Bassett, was wife and grand mother of presidents. Her husband was William Henry Harrison, ninth occupant of the White House, her grandson, Benjamin Harrison, the twenty-third in line. That all the presidents have been dignified men from their early years is shown by the Christian names of their helpmeets. Among the wives of the presidents there never has been a Flossie, a Babette, a Tessie, a Kitty, nor even a Gwendolyn, Hortense or Mabel. The only woman whose given name approached frivolity was Dolly Madison, and she no doubt was chris tened Dorothy or Dorothea, unless a mistake was made at the baptismal font. Tlyro were two Marthas and as many Abigails, Carolines, Marys, Elizas and Julias. The other presidents' wives have been, respectively, Dolly, Louisa, Rachel, Hannah, Anna, Letitia, Sarah, Margaret, Jane, Lucy, Lucretia, Ellen, Frances, Ida, Alice and Edith. Equally staid were the names of the presidents' mothers. There have been two each of Jane, Eliza, Anna and Nancy; three Marys and four Elizabeths, The other mothers of the presidents divide the names Susanna, Nelly, Abi gail, Maria, Sarah, Phoebe, Harriet, Sophia, Malvina and Martha. The wife of the first president and the mother of the latest were named Martha. It is hard to conceive of any of those women being addressed by undignified diminutives. As to Sneezing. Why should a person sneeze? Why does almost every one believe that to sneeze is to catch cold? Sneezing is an explosive expulsion of air through the nasal passages and inouth; but what causes it and what are its results? It increases the circulation. It clears the head. When you sneeze always hold your head straight in front. Don't twist it to the left or right. Never sneeze over your shoulder. You are liable to burst a blood vessel. Some say that sitting in a draft will cause sneezing. In former days it was a very polite custom to take snuff to encourage a sneeze. Men had their bejeweled snuff boxes and carried their handkerchiefs in their cuffs. No doubt a sneeze was originally designed to expel irritating materials from the upper air passages. In the act a powerful expiratory effort is made, th< vocal cords are kept shut till the pres sure in the chest, has risen high, and air is then suddenly allowed to escape upward, being directed into the back of the nose by the soft palate. A Boston Touch. Once upon a time DeWo!f Hopper met a Boston person in that town whom he had not seen for a long period of duration. "Hello; how aro you? Where have you been?" said Hopper in his hearty way, giving the New York pronuncia tion to the word "been." "Please don't cay 'bin,' but 'been,' " pleaded the Boston person plaintively. "Sorry, but I can't," pleaded the big fellow. "I never had a bean in my mouth in my life, not even in Boa ton."—Bohemian Magazine. Not Open to Hints. He—Did you see here this shocking acoount of how a woman committed uiclde because she was not a good lousokeepcr? She—Oh, don't (latter yourself ' aiu at ail susce-itlble to suggestion. 9
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers