The Wheeling Daily Register

CHRISTMAS EVE.--The familiar heralds of "the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse," is just now visible on every hand, the Christmas trees being made to bloom and blossom at paternal hands, with toys and spangles and wonderful things to dazzle to-morrow morning eyes of the little folks. It is the time when Santa Claus makes his mysterious visits down chimneys. But this superstition has come not to be very readily believed by the young folks-they having become practical they do not understand how he can get into a modern house through a flue, without scratching himself on the grate or coal stove. Gradually the Santa Claus fiction is vanishing, as the burning of the yule log went out when the fire-places were bricked up.

The Christmas-day dinner, too, is to be purveyed to-day. The innocent turkey, with his garnishment of mute oysters, will be much interviewed, and the green grocers and cooks will be at their wits end to make business for the physicians. Speaking of the Christmas dinner brings to mind quaint old Pepys' account of a sermon he heard Bishop Morley preach two hundred years ago. He says the sermon was not a very superior one, but the Bishop's "did much to press us to join in these public days of joy and hospitality, but one that stood by whispered in mine ear that the bishop do not spend one groat to the poor himself." The bishop's precept should be observed rather than his example. A Christmas dinner will be rendered more digestible by giving a Christmas dinner to another who cannot give one to himself.