Carrying out our usual annual custom, we proceed to give a description—necessarily an imperfect one, owing to the multi-city of articles of all kinds shown—of the christmas Gxhibits in the several Stores. Turning back to the records of former years, we find, especially in the Christmas preparations of 1876 and 1877, that there was then much to admire and much worthy of record as evidencing the great advancement of apt in little matters ""—tho manufacture of children's toys, &0.,—os well as in that of the more orate articles for use on the table or in the embellishment of a lad; dressing room or boudoir, as compared with previous years but a walk through the tores on Monday and yesterday quickly showed that the advancement during the pist twelvemonth has been much more Tapid—so rapid, indeed, that nothing but the impetus given to competition by the Paris Exhibition could have achieved so marked a result for the better. In very truth, a goodly slice of the Paris Exhibition' appears fo have found its way to Shanghai, for, on every hand, in almost every Store, the answer to the question, Where is this from" is "Oh! from the Paris Exhibition."
The greatest credit is due, not only to the agents and buyers at Home, for thei careful and judicious selection of articles suitable for Christmas, but also to those who, resident in Shanghai, have sufficient enterprise to encourage' the dovelopmont, of such aesthetic taste, in order to give the exiles in Far Cathay an opportunity of participating in those good things which at this festive season of the Fear are always supposed to please the eye and gladden the heart of the loved ones, who, while either remaining quiet home, or it may be sailing on board ships at sea, nevertheless feel, as it were, drawn together and united by one bond at this particular season. It may be only sentiment, but it is good to entertain such feelings—and, further, as we have before said, it is good to be able in this far-distant part of the world to have such beautiful reminders of Homo sottered around us with a lavish hand on every side, by the energy and enterprise of fellow-residents.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.