g a
goodly joint of beef for the Christmas dinner. The festivity this
afternoon was brought to a close by the children singing the National
Anthem in the courtyard.

"The Queen is accustomed to spend Christmas Day very quietly,
attending service at the Chapel at Osborne in the morning, and in the
evening the Royal family meeting at dinner. There are Christmas trees
for the children, and for the servants too, but the houshold reserves
its principal festivity for the New Year--a day which is specially set
aside for their entertainment."

THE CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES AT SANDRINGHAM

are observed with generous hospitality by their Royal Highnesses the
Prince and Princess of Wales, who take special interest in the
enjoyment of their tenants, and also remember the poor. A
time-honoured custom on Christmas Eve is the distribution of prime
joints of meat to the labourers employed on the Royal estate, and to
the poor of the five parishes of Sandringham, West Newton, Babingley,
Dersingham, and Wolferton. From twelve to fifteen hundred pounds of
meat are usually distributed, and such other gifts are made as the
inclemency of the season and the necessities of the poor require. In
Sandringham "Past and Present," 1888, Mrs. Herbert Jones
says:--"Sandringham, which is the centre of a generous hospitality,
has not only been in every way raised, benefited, and enriched since
it passed into the royal hands, which may be said to have created it
afresh, but rests under the happy glow shed over it by the preference
of a princess

"'Whose peerless feature joined with her birth,
Approve her fit for none but for a king.'
Shakespeare's _Henry VI_."

The Christmas Generosity of the late Duke of Edinburgh.

In a letter to the press a lieutenant of Marines makes the following
reference to a Christmas entertainment given by H.R.H. the Duke of
Edinburgh, in 1886: "Last night a large party, consisting of many
officers of the Fleet, including all the 'old ships' of the Duke, and
three or four midshipmen from every ship in the Fleet, were invited to
a Christmas-tree at S. Antonio Palace. In the course of the evening
two lotteries were drawn, all the numbers being prizes, each guest
consequently getting two. I have had an opportunity of seeing many of
these, and they are all most beautiful and useful objects, ranging in
value from five shillings to perhaps three or four pounds. I should
think that at least half the p