Guest of Blonde Eskimos

1916

Preacher Dwells With Newly-found Arctic People.

SASKATOON, Saskatchewan, Canada. — The tribe of blonde Eskimos which Harry V. Radford of New York, the murdered explorer, reported he had found on Coronation Bluff, far in the Arctic zone, have been visited again by a white man. In a letter received this week from the Rev. H. Girling of Emmanuel College by the Rev. Dr. Carpenter, principal of the college, the missionary announced he reached the fair dwellers of the Arctic on Oct. 10, 1915, and remained with them some time. He asserts that he is the first white man to dwell among the newly-found people.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 5.

Frightened By Santa Claus

Article from 1911

How the Dear Old Saint Carried Consternation Into an African Mission House

An amusing story of how Santa Claus frightened the black children at a mission station when he first appeared to them a few years ago, is told by the wife of a missionary stationed at Bailundu, Africa. They had celebrated Christmas at Bailundu before, but they never had had Santa Claus, so Mr. Stover, the missionary, dressed up as good Saint Nick.

"He had been padded and powdered and packed until his own mother would not have known him," Mrs Stover afterward related. "Presently we gave the signal, the door flew open and in walked Santa Claus. But dear me! "What consternation! He was greeted with shrieks and groans and cries of 'Let me out! It is the evil one. It is the day of judgment!'

"The urchins, catching the infection of terror from the older black people, fled to their bedrooms, fell down upon their faces, crept under chairs and tables — anywhere to hide themselves. Poor old Santa Claus never had such a greeting before. As soon as he realized the panic he had caused, he tore off his tall hat and white cotton beard. Then from the bags on his back he began to throw gifts right and left and to tell who he was.

"Reassured once more, everyone was soon laughing and chatting, munching the great 'red breads' (doughnuts), tasting their fruits or nibbling at the sweets from the familiar little bags.

"It seemed as though everyone tried to talk louder than his neighbor as they examined the costume of Santa Claus, whom they now no longer feared. One man said that he thought it was John the Baptist, another that it was Elijah returned. Yet another thought it was Satan himself, 'and all my sins rose up before me;' while a fourth confessed, 'My only thought was to hide myself'."

Talk About the High Cost of Clothing; Fig Leaves Up in Price

1920

Talk About the H. C. of Clothing!
Even Fig Leaves Up 300 Per Cent

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The St. Paul housewives and business men bemoaning the high cost of living and the concomitant depreciation in the purchasing power of money, are, if they only knew it, much more fortunately situated financially than the jungle dweller, as is shown by the letters of a Baptist foreign missionary received here recently.

Whereas, the monetary experts of our Nation will tell us that the buying power of a dollar has only descended to 40 cents, the modest inhabitant of the jungle's fastness must pay four monkey tails for a palm leaf to cover his nakedness, where formerly one simian appendage sufficed.

And this proportion holds true for everything the human denizens of the tropical forests might want to buy. In the good old days, any father would sell his most lovely daughter into marriage for a tiger's tooth, and now he is profiteering and wants three tigers' teeth and an American plug hat.

The ways of the flat hunter in St. Paul are hard, but the ways of the head hunter in Borneo are even harder, for the unfortunate savage can no longer establish his rank in society by purchasing a head at a moderate price, but is forced to go out and look for one, unless he has the wealth of a Croesus.

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 27, 1920, page 1.