ne has to go very far back in the world’s history to arrive at the time when there were absolutely no toys. Indeed, one may feel tolerably certain that as soon as the children arrived, toys—rough, rude things, no doubt, but still playthings—began to appear upon the scene.

It is curious, too, to notice how the same kinds have been the delight of childish hearts for hundreds and hundreds of years. Leather balls stuffed with wool have been found in the tombs of Egyptian mummies, side by side with jointed dolls and quaint little crocodiles that had not forgotten how to move their jaws. Down in the catacombs, among the resting-places of the early Christians, searchers have come across hoops, tops, marbles, and even the miniature furniture of a doll’s house. The youthful owners of these playthings lay buried close by.

We know that the boys of ancient Greece and Rome had ninepins and rocking-horses; nor was our genial friend, the Jack-in-the-box, a stranger to them. Kites probably came to us from China, where kite-flying was a national amusement for young and old; while even grown-up people played at battledore and shuttlecock in the reign of James I., and Oxford students at marbles.

But it was not until modern times that toy-making became a flourishing branch of industry. Toy-breaking, as we all know, goes on steadily in the nurseries of Europe; and to fill up the gaps, toys are being turned out yearly in almost incredible quantities. The small autocrats of nursery-land continually call for “more, more,” and in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, in the dark forests of Thuringia, or some distant Tyrolean village, children not much older are gravely helping to manufacture playthings. They begin as soon as their chubby fingers can grasp a knife; and they end—well, when quite old men and women, too blind perhaps to see whether the cow they are carving has three legs or four.

There are whole regions where every single family is engaged in toymaking. In the summer months the men and women work on the farms, but the long dark winter finds them all with legions of wooden soldiers, fleets of Noah’s arks, whips, rattles, and dolls by the gross.

You must not imagine that each toy is made by a single person; even one that you might buy for a penny at a German fair has probably passed through a dozen different hands.

Here is one costing that noble sum; a neat little man wheeling a barrow of fruit. One workman turned the body, a second the arms and legs, a third put the barrow together, a fourth turned the wheel, a fifth put the spokes in, and a sixth the linch pin. A seventh turned the fruit, an eighth made the basket to put it in, while a ninth coloured it. Number ten painted the barrow, and passed it over to eleven, who glued the whole together, while twelve gave it a final varnish.

It is this minute division of labour that makes it possible to buy a penny toy for a penny; a small price truly when one recollects that the completed articles have to be packed and conveyed hundreds of miles by rail and sea before they appear in the toy-shop. Even when you know all about it, you still wonder how it can possibly be done at the price.

A large and flourishing tribe of toy-makers is to be found among the mountains of the Tyrol, in a most romantic and beautiful spot. The centre of the trade is the village of St. Ulrich, but wherever one wanders, one has a vision of toys. Even the girl selling apples and pears at a stall by the roadside, employs her spare minutes in putting little dabs of bright red paint on the cheeks of a pile of farthing dolls. To-morrow she will give them all black eyes, red shoes, and white stockings; and for this she gets a farthing a dozen, finding her own paint. If you enter into conversation with her, she will tell you with pride that her father carves horses; and that her brother can make a more life-like goat than any other youth in his workshop.

Every description of animal is manufactured in and around St. Uhlrich, and it is very curious and interesting to watch the Tyrolese at work. They use no models, but follow what is familiarly known as the rule-of-thumb; and from long practice a Tyrolean thumb knows perfectly well what it is about.

In a large workshop, such as is represented in our illustration, most of the lads have their special department. Some block out the animals roughly, others make the stands; one boy, more advanced, has a turn for camels and elephants, another can carve a most natural-looking cow, a third is a splendid hand at sheep. Hans sticks to the glue-pot, and little Peter has charge of the varnish. Painting and gilding is quite a distinct branch of the trade, and our young carvers have nothing at all to do with that.

Formerly each family worked for itself, but now there are two important toy merchants in St. Ulrich, who purchase all the wares of the neighbourhood, and send them out into the world. It is mostly on Saturday that baskets of toys come streaming down the mountain paths, the result of the week’s labour; and a visit to one of the monster warehouses makes one gasp with astonishment. Your brain almost reels at the sight of so many toys-dolls by the billion, piled-up bins of quadrupeds, uncountable flocks of sheep, Noah and his family repeated again and again, horses by the million, heaps upon heaps of gaily-painted cocks, and so on through dozens of rooms. The dolls are carefully sorted, and you may seem them of every size, from one inch long to a yard.

A doll that is very popular is one only a couple of inches in length; of this size the owner of the warehouse buys 30,000 every week. A quick worker can turn out twenty dozen a day, but division of labour steps in here too.

You will find a family that devoted its undivided attention to dolls’ arms and legs; their neighbours across the road make dolls’ heads and bodies, and nothing else; a third family will gladly undertake to paint the whole batch for an extremely small sum.

We are acquainted with this class of inexpensive lady under the name of “Dutch doll”—our great grandmothers called her a “Flanders baby”; this was because German toys were imported into England by way of Rotterdam. The pattern dolly, it is said, originally came from Japan, and the queer little old specimen is preserved as a curiosity in the museum at the Hague.

The Dutch must be given credit for inventing the crying doll; but if you want a very superior, highly finished article, you must come to London for it. Cheap dolls are imported, but the best waxen beauties, with lovely blue eyes and real flaxen curls, are English to the last grain of sawdust in their bodies.

Here in London you may find dolls’ head makers, dolls’ leg and arm makers, wig makers, and eye makers; doll stuffers and doll dressers. Dolls’ glass eyes are manufactured in most surprising quantities; the cheaper ones are simply small hollow beads made of white enamel, and coloured with black or blue; the better ones have a ring of color to represent the iris. There is a fashion in color as well as in other things, and it is stated that since Queen Victoria came to the throne dolls with blue eyes have been the most popular.

It is interesting to know that England and America take more toys than any other countries. Most of the enormous packing cases, large enough for a cottage piano, to be seen in St. Ulrich will eventually find their way to one of these two shores. Some of them will be full of rocking-horses, for there is a manufacturer living close to the stream that dashes through the valley who turns out at least a thousand gallant steeds a year by the aid of machinery and water power. You cannot mistake his shop, for a white rocking horse is painted above it.

Young England is partial to horses and dolls, but young Italy prefers little carts and wagons, and these must be gaily painted, too, to please his taste for bright colours. Belgian boys clamour for sturdy farm horses, but young Austrians care more for prancing, curvetting steeds, such as a soldier might ride. The national spirit peeps out even here.

Metal toys mostly hail from Nuremburg, which produces miniature printing presses, magic lanterns, and all sorts of magnetic playthings, such as ducks and fish, running mice, and the like. Conjuring tricks in bewildering variety are made here, for this is the particular territory of Signor Hocus Pocus; also whole armies of the leaden soldiers that so delight German boys, and English ones, too, for that matter. Six miles away lies Furth, a town given up to Noah’s arks, dissected puzzles, boxes of bricks, and the like. Clockwork toys are made in Wurtemberg, and from Hesse Cassel come helmets, guns, and swords.

It is really marvellous how many people are hard at work, year in year out, making playthings which are destined often to be broken and tossed away after a few hours. Perhaps our younger brothers and sisters would take better care of their poor ill-treated toys if they knew a little more of their interesting history.

Victorian Girl Receiving Gifts - Trade Card Image from the Miss Mary collection.

It undoubtedly adds to the pleasure of Christmas present-giving, and especially if there be young folks in the household, to adopt some original mode of presenting the gifts. The following suggestions as to the distribution of Christmas gifts might also be useful in connection with Sunday school or church Christmas festivals, when novelty in presentation of gifts always adds materially to the pleasure of the occasion.

A Father Christmas

One popular mode of distribution is to have Father Christmas make the presentations. Whoever is chosen to impersonate this important character should be ready-witted, capable of saying something bright and humorous at least to the junior members of the party as he hands them their presents. He should be dressed in a red robe, with a long white beard and a wreath of holly on his head, a stick in one hand and a large bag containing the presents in the other. This, if not too large, he may carry in and put down in front of him; if too large, he may walk in front of a procession of girls and boys and take his place behind the presents, which should be hidden beneath a tablecover.

He may have a musical procession if he can sing, or some one may play the piano while the children sing.

All the gifts should be packed up and addressed, if Father Christmas is to distribute them, otherwise they may fall into the wrong hands.

When all are distributed he should lead this procession of boys and girls, who follow him singing a Christmas verse.

The Magic Cave

is another mode of distributing gifts. For this a corner of a room, or if a hall is used and is large it may be easy to arrange the structure there; a screen will materially assist, or two screens are even better. Any large, dried grasses and palms are handy to pile up on one side, on the other crystallized wadding made to look like stalactites by pulling it into points, gumming and sifting over glass powder, will give the effect of a cave.

If cotton, wool, or wadding of any description be used, the very greatest care should be taken that no light of any description is allowed to be near it, as it is of such an inflammable nature that mischief would be very unlikely to make the result, and therefore, during the making the cave, as well as using it, no light should be suffered to approach it.

At the door of the cave a fairy should stand with a want in her hand, and after making some mystic movements with it, she may silently enter the cave, bring out the present and hand it to the person for whom it is intended, then with her want beckon to another to approach her, and so on.

Pretty, soft music should be played during the distribution.

The Christmas Tree

still hold its place in many homes; it is very attractive, especially when the recipients of the Christmas gifts are mostly children.

The Bran Tub

When a number of presents of about equal value are provided, a large tub filled with bran, and the presents papered up and covered with the bran, is very good fun for children, as they grope about, uncertain which to take, and this provides amusement.

The Fairy’s Well

is also a source of considerable amusement. All the presents for this mode of distribution must be put into a deep tub, which may be decorated round the sides with evergreens and grasses, and made to look like a well. One or two short fishing-rods are used to draw the presents out with.

Arthur’s Home Magazine

The long, cold evenings of winter, and the time for merry in-door sports, has come again. The young people can no longer have the croquet out of doors, the little ones can no longer frolic on the pavement or lawn. About this time there begin to be very mysterious looks, and head-shakings, and incomprehensible talks among the different members of the family.

Up-stairs there is a wonderful bureau, which could reveal volumes of secrets if it could talk, or if it could only let you peep into the dim recesses of its drawers. There the Christmas gifts are laid away, not to see the light of day until the dawn of the Christmas morning.

Such wonders as have found their way into the bureau during the last few days. Pretty pin-cushions, scarfs, shawls, mittens, slippers, sofa cushions, caps, and the dear knows what besides of home manufacture, all made by loving hands. And there are toys for boys, and dolls for girls, which are going to delight little hearts ere many days. In the sitting-room, the bow-window is veiled from the vulgar gaze of the family in general, and inside there is sometimes heard a mysterious driving of nails, an omen of an unusual preparation for the coming holiday.

What a revelation there will be on Christmas morning! Oh, the fairy splendors of the Christmas-tree! Glittering with bright toys and blazing tapers, little elves peeping out between the branches, little fairies perched on all the twigs, a fairy queen in dazzling array crowing the top-most point. Beneath, a wonderful rural scene–a tiny cottage, with yard around; a peaceful lake, with little ducks upon it; shrubs and flowers in the cottage yard, and old Kriss Kringle at the gate, nodding his white head, bowing everybody a welcome to his hospitable retreat.

Then comes a merry time, lasting the livelong day. The Christmas dinner, with all the absent ones at home again, around the festal board. Then the evening, with its games and bonbons, its dancing and merry-making.