isolated beings live in eternal satisfaction,
not daring, not wishing, to exchange one
clasp of the hands! Surely our troublesome
earth is better than such a paradise.

CHRISTMAS TOYS.

THIS is the season of the year when
Christmas-trees have to be furnished, when
children are to be rewarded, when country
cousins and all those hospitable houses where
we go to shoot, or fish, have to receive some
small token of our gratitude and sense of
favours to come. The source of all the toys
and trifles that fill our shops was long a
puzzle, until the other day a lady, who
has never been beyond Boulogne, but ought
to have rivalled Madame Pfeiffer, in sailing
round the world, guided us, much amazed,
through crowded regions of the Minories and
Houndsditch to the omnium gatherum
warehouse of the Messrs. David—a paradise of
toys. Almost all countries, civilised and uncivilised,
contribute to its stores. No Russian
army can present a greater variety of complexion,
costume, and nationality than the
assembly of dolls; all known by names
mysterious to the public, but perfectly
familiar to the trade. In English wooden
dolls alone there are half-a-dozen grades,
including Bob's-sticks, Dwarfs-thumbs, Putians,
and Lilliputians. These—from the rudest
kind, with mere sticks without joints for
limbs—are all the pink-varnished wooden
dolls, dear to the youth of both sexes, which
survive so many others of more artistic construction.
The eyes, being painted, cannot
be probed out; the body being a solid block
cannot be broken; therefore, when the once-curled
tresses have been frizzled or ruthlessly
torn away, when the varnish has been chipped
and the nose snubbed by repeated bangings
against the floor, or even seared by
an unlawful thrust into the bars of the nursery
grate, the wooden doll, tattooed and
scarred, often survives as prime favourite after
the destruction of inert babies of more gorgeous
construction. The old original wax
doll, with or without winking eyes, comes
next, also an English manufacture and article
of export. It seems that the little American
ladies follow the tastes of their British
cousins, and dress, and put to sleep, and
poke out the eyes of wax dolls, just like
the little Royalists on this side of the water.
Among the changes produced by the Great
Exhibition, was an improvement in the features
of the higher class of wax dolls: babies
now seem to be the type of the modellers,
rather than grown women, as formerly.
Wax dolls, with canvas bodies, are prepared
to suit all purses, from two shillings and
eight-pence a dozen, to three pounds each,
dressed in long robes, or fashionable morning
costume. We next come to the Dutch
doll, which does not come from Holland at
all, but from rural villages of Germany. They
are made of wood, with a genteel face and
hair fashionably dressed, legs and arms that
bend stiffly, and often break. Papier-mâché
heads of dolls, are also imported from
Germany, and fitted to leather bodies in
England. A recent invention furnishes porcelain
babies, neatly dressed in cap and night-gown,
that squeak in a most interesting
manner. We must not forget the naked babies
of porcelain, which, with baths of appropriate
size, afford a fine example to the modern nurseries
of the propriety of being good children,
and going into the bath without crying. We
were happy to find that a doll, about the
size of an average baby, and very like one,
could be supplied, neatly dressed, for about
seven shillings. Then there were rag dolls,
another Great Exhibition invention, and
gutta-percha dolls, more tough than odorous.

At a certain stage of nurserydom, the doll
that has previously been only kissed, cuddled,
thumped, and put to bed, requires an establishment
more or less complete. Tea-services
are in the greatest demand in
England; in France dinner-services are
more favoured. Tea-services are made
in delft, porcelain, lead, tin, and wood.
Porcelain and opaque glass tea and dinner-services,
have lately become a large article
of importation from Saxony and Bohemia.
Lead toys are all made in London, while
the tin toyware occupies a distinct and
considerable branch of trade of Wolverhampton,
in Staffordshire.* A tea-service in
wood, in a box, is made in Germany and sold
for a halfpenny; or three shillings and ninepence
a gross. A doll's house may be furnished
very completely, with bureaus in white
wood with secretary all complete opening
and shutting; chairs, tables, wardrobes, sofas,
beds with babies fast asleep in them at two
shillings and ninepence a dozen; kitchens,
with all the apparatus for cooking a good
German or English dinner, provided always
that the prime roast is not larger than a jenny-wren.
The carved wood-work is done in
German villages—many in Coburgh—where, it
would seem, the clever hands produce the works
of art, and children and apprentices practise on
the cheap things. German carving is cheap,
French more elegant. It is worthy of note,
that the French manufacturers always write
in their own language; but that from the
remote villages of Middle Germany, and from
Switzerland, well-written English letters are
received. Of course, there are occasional mistakes.
For instance, a worthy Coburghian
maker of Noah's arks wrote on one occasion:
"I am sure you shall be satisfied with my
charges, as I have put the utmost prices on
every article."

At the present moment war toys are all
the rage. Drums are manufactured in England,
but drumsticks are imported from
France. A great trade is done in long tin

*See volume vi., page 431.