| Citation |
NYG(W.759.074
24 Dec 1759:21,22 (45)
(Some particulars in the following will sute New-York, as
well as) London, The Humours of Christmas.
At this season of the year it has always been customary
for the lower part of the world to express their gratitude
to their benefactors. . . [1 column, satire on present
customs.]
But the gift [the christmas box] is now almost demanded as a
right; and our journeymen, apprentices, &c. are grown so
polite, that instead of reserving their Christmas box for
its original use, their ready cash serves them only for
present pocket-money; and instead of visiting their friends
and relations, they commence the fine gentlemen of the week.
The sixpenny hop is crouded with ladies and gentlemen from
the kitchen; the syrens of Catherine-street charm many a
holiday gallant into their snares; and the play-houses are
filled with beaux, wits and critics, from Cheapside and
White-Chapel. . . [1/2 column]
As to persons of the fashion, this annual carnival is
worse to them that Lent, or the empty town in the middle of
summer. The boisterous merriment, and aukward affection of
politeness among the vulgar, interrupts the course of their
refined pleasures and drives them out of town for the
holidays. The few who remain are very much at a loss how to
dispose of their time; for the theatres at this season are
opened only for the reception of school-boys and
apprentices, and there is no publick place where a person of
fashion can appear, without being surrounded with the dirty
inhabitants of St. Giles's, and the brutes from the Wapping
side of Westminster. . .
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