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TT?D yJETSRAPKA CTOTHINd COMPANT'S m.'II.rINa, THOUGH NOT ON SIXTEENTH STREET, LOSB8 NOTHING IN
WHEN DAYLIGHT GIVES WAY TO ELECTRICITY. .. .
iNSTEAD of renaming Slxternth
street, Broadway why not
recojrnlee the pnternnl fltnesa of
tlilnKH find rail It Santa Clous
Street. Pt. Nicholas Avenue or
Krl Krlnnle Hifrhway? By
day Uila street, the lirnrt of the Omaha
BhuppinfT d'strlit, l thronged and by night
It blfcen with electric Ilghti to. evpn
reater throngs. The photographa, from
which: the cuts Illustrating this article are
made, were taken after nightfall recently.
For a month preceding Christmas old
Santa has his secret agents trudging openly
and brasenly up and down the Ave blocks
between Dodge and Howard streets with
mysterious bundles m their arms and tired
but happy expressions on their faces. From
December 1 until after Christmas day the
sordid matter-of-fact business of the street
Is subordinated to romance of Christmas
shopping. . The people who have to buy
their meat and potatoes and breakfast food
In the Blxteenth street shops have to do
It the best way they can so as not to In
terfere with these thousands of shoppers
for the reindeer monarch of the north.
' For their shopping excursions are the Im
portant thlnRS of early winter commerce
and must not be Interfered with.
From the time the big display ads begin
to ba headed by legends of "Xmas," with
pictures of a fat mart with whiskers and a
smile, as the centerpiece. Sixteenth street
' takes on an unusual air of prosperity.
During the rest of the year, of course, It
Is crowded uncomfortably during special
sales find on Saturday nights especially,
but compared with the throngs that tramp
up and down Its sidewalks In early Decem
ber Its ordinary crowd of shoppers looks
like the standing army of a Central Ameri
can republic.
Even Samson with ills proclamation can
draw the crowds to Blxteenth street only a
few evenings and then business takes on its
customary grind. But the edict of St.
Nick has the power to bring out the multi
tudes It such numbers the streets are black
d u ring. ttte busy part of the day for weeks
at a time.
This year, when It was found necessary
to do business with cashiers' checks and
clearing house certificates, some people
thought the Christmas crowds on Sixteenth
street would dwindle and grow small, but
they were mistaken. People seemed as
willing to let go of clearing house certifi
cates ns greenbacks and the acraggly Image
of the agle on the new gold money made
them anxious to get rid of It because It
offended their artistic temperament. So
the crowds on St. Nick's favorite street
did not dwindle, but grew as they never
did before. The throngs swing back and
fourth and up and down the sidewalks and
In front of the big show windows as In
the good old days when no one had to
bother with clearing house certificates or
cashiers' checks.
So the stealy stream of people weighted
down with bundles moves up on one side
of the pavement and down the other, mov
ing at the uniformly sluggish face of the
sightseer and the uncertain shopper. At
more or less regular points little knots of
people mark the places where Interesting
wlmVw displays are attracting attention.
These knots show by their slse and the
Individuals composing them what par
ticular kind of a Santa Clans exhibition
Is the cause of It. Here In front of this
window Is a little group of men critically
examining an exhibit of pipes and Christ
mas cigars with a fringe of other smokers'
goods. Down the street a short distance Is
a crowd of women looking in ecstatic won
der at a show window full of hand bags.
Characters
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purses and other beautiful erections In
leather.
But neither of these grorp represents
the real Christmas, crowd. This will ue
found In open-eyed wonderment In front ot
the big window containing the irechanU-al
toy, representing a landscape with engines
pulling trains through the valleys- and over
th hills, and the Imitation river covered
with moving steamboats and old Santa
Clans backed up in a oorncr watching It
In this crowd there are men, women anA
children, principally children, who stand
with their eyes glued to the moving ma
chinery or 4ry to clamber up on the sill
of the window to get a better view. After
all it Is tli wlndrtw ' made up for the
children that attracts the crowds, even the
big folks, during the Christmas shopping
season. The old folks may take a passing
Interest in tho exhibits Intended for them,
but their real sympathy Is appealed to. b
tho one that carrleB their thoughts baclc
to the time they were dressed In knleker
bookers or short dresses.' . .
This army of shoppers begins Us march
early In the mornlrTg- and keeps It up unill
after the stores are .closed at night. The
advance guard arrives on the scene while
the air Is still frosty and the' sidewalk
are white. They are the working men who
have to do their shopping before they go
to work. Gradually the throngs Increase asj
the day advances and by 10 o'clock the side
walks are filled with shoppers whose un
divided attention Is given to the shov
windows. Here is mamma with little Wll
trudging along by her side. She has come
down early In order to avoid tho rush and
she gets Into a Jam on the corner as soon
'as she alights from the car. By noon she
has one arm filled with packages piled up
like a small boy carries wood for the wood
box. Ttus handicapped she his hard work
keeping her enthusiastic offspring under
control. Together with "hundreds of other
mothers, who' are forced to undergo the
joy of taking their small sons and daugh
ters with them, she finally gets on a car
and sinks, tired but thankful,' lntp a seat.
At noon the office buildings pour out a
deluge of shoppers, most of whom make a
rush for a quick lunch coupter and after
a few hastily masticated mouthfuls have
been swallowed they rush out onto the
street again with their noses ' pointed
toward Santa Claus avenue. It is fortunate
that most of the foronoon ' shoppers have
to get back home for lunch, or the big
thoroughfare would be blocked during the
hour dear to the clerks, stenographers and
office man who have all their Christmas
things to buy. Bo the crowd on the street
Instead of growing smaller at noon merely
changes its Individuality like a quick
change actor and mamma and little Willie
are replaced by Maine, the stenographer,
or Mr. Penenlnk, the office man.
The noon crowds surge back and forth
from Dodge street to Howard In much the
same way that the forenoon crowd does.
There Is the difference, however, that there
is a noticeable hurry in the action of the
noon crowd. They do not linger quite as
long In front of the show windows and
they glance uneasily at the dock as they
rush bsck to the office In order to check
off before their hour Is up.
It Is the afternoon crowd that shows the
true spirit "of Christmas, however. The
morning crowd Is distinctively- a buying
crowd. Women who hurry through with
the morning work In order to make a trip
down town before lunch have something
more serious1" on their minds than mere
sight-seeing. They know pretty well what
they want and they go after It. The noon
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from
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crowd with a limit' on the time it can
spend at the bargain counter is also a.
, buying crowd. But the afternoon crowd I
both a buying and a "rObbertng" crowd.
It Is after tho duties of the day are done
that, fond mammas bring their children
down town for the express purpose of
seeing Santa Claus. A trip like' this to
be enjoyed must not be too full of sordid
business cares. Too many purchases can
not be mudo then, because .the children
have to be watched, and the worry of
caring for n Bant Clans-crazed- child I
sufficient without the. added burden of
selecting presents or carrying big bundles.
It Is during the middle of the after-'
noon that the Fan la Claux spirit Is at
Its height. , Then old Sixteenth street
throws off Us appearance of mere money
getting and begins to look like tho
grounds of a huge carnival, at which
Santa Claus Is the monarch of all he sur--veys.
Children scamper here and there
from one window to another or ' tug at
the hand that restrains them. Gaiety Is
everywhere, and the snntches of talk one
hears in passing Is all of glft-maklrv?.
Hero and there on the busiest corners arev
Santa Clauses In red. with long, gray
whiskers, tinkling a bell to attract atten
tion or knocking their heels together to
the rythmic clatter of nlcVles. dimes ant
quarters and the coins drop Into thcl?
kettles to cheer the Christmas of someone
whose purse Is empty. Between curb
stones the street Is fl!".Jd with wagons,
piled high with Christmas thlngi In boxed
on their way to the stores. The spirit
of giving Is in the air and it Is then that
ono plans the gift he intends to buy
when the crowds thin out and he has more
time.
Saturday night the throngs, which dur
ing the day may be numbered by the hun
dreds, are counted , by the thoussnd, if
counted at all. It is the oft night for
everybody but t'.ie clerks, and everyone
who has not had the opportunity during
the daylight hours or who has spent the
week laying elaborate plans for gifts for
all the family and friends. Then the
shoppers and sightseers mingle on . the
Creisrhton
THE OMAHA SUNDAY- BEE:. DECEMBER 15. 15)07.
on City Streets During: December Days
At
ATTRACTIVENESS
AS NIGHT FAIiS -BENNETTS L0OU3 UP Bid AGAINST THE BKX.
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TIlFl BRANDEI3 BUILDING
si lewalks and press themselves into no
co.-npact a mass -that onejnust follow the
stream and keep moving,' .
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DOVT YOU GIVH"MB""THAT"BABY'8TARE.,
Packlnghaiu. Porkpacker, Late of Kansas City Charles J. Thlelen.
Charles Packlngham. Harvard, 'uS, His Ban-Charles Moaralh.
r. . .... .
HATDEN S AND OTHERS NEAR DODGE SHOW
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IS ALMOST AS BEAUTIFUL ON A CLEAR NIGHT AS BY DAY.
This has been the holiday history of rouse the sleepers hundreds of miles away,
Sixteenth street ever since it became the . But the 'crowds of Christmas shoppers
principal retail thoroughfare of Omaha, do. not all stay on Sixteenth street. While
Class Play on Monday Night
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A BLAZE OP ELECTRIC LIGHT WHEN
and the story will be repeated every year
until some other street farther out usurps
Its position in the hearts of shoppers.
During the twenty shopping days before
Chrlstma it I estimated that 45.000 peo
ple pass up and down Slxtterith street In
quest of Christmas things every day on
an average. This would make an army
of 900,000, though Aof course some shop
pers are .counted two or three- tlmos, as
the buying cannot all be done In. a single
day. If these 900,000 agents of Santa
Claus pass up one side of Sixteenth and
down the other once each day they shop
they will have taken , 1,350,000,000
steps.
, If some maglcan-lnventor could contrive
a mechanism that could harmonize the steps
taken by these shoppers and throw them
out from a sounding board' in regular
cadence it would sound like the . measured
tread of a great army. If all the force
expended In these 1,150,000,000 steps could
be concentrate into a single step by a
monster foot representing the . combined
muscle and. bone of all the 1,900,000 feet, the
impact would Jar the retail - stores from
their foundations and clerks would sud
denly find the walls tumbling down around
them.
If all the "ohe" and 'ahs'-of little chil
dren as (hey admire the wonderful things
In the windows could be combined into a
Ingle one it would be loud enough to
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. BILL riNERTY. ONE OS" TUB
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THE SUN NO I-ONGER Sli m
the big show windows there are attractlva
and tend to draw the multitudes like mug
nets, the other streets have attractions as)
well. Up and down Dodge, Douglas, Far
nain and Harney streets the people surge
back and forth and the cross streets from
Thirteenth west also catch their share of
the Christmas traffic.
On these streets the people go who ara
In quest of something in a specific line.
At the department stores they have an.
opportunity to paw over everything from
a pin to a piano. When they get speclllo
Ideas as to what line of goods they want
to Invest In they turn naturally to some
of the smaller single line stores, most of
which are located on streets other than
Sixteenth.
It Is In this section the crowds turn when
they wont to dazzle their eyes with bril
liant diamonds and admire the clear red
ness of rubles. The show windows of tin
Jewelry stores are always attractive to the
Christmas shopper. Besides the precious
stones they find Joy In the windows filled,
with hand-painted pottery and china
ware. So, too, the young man who wants to
send a remembrance in the form of a box
ef flowers duds unusual Interest in the
elaborate displays of beautiful blossoms
and fresh green ferns in the Farnam street
show windows. When the Christmas trade
Is on these windows become perfect bow
ers of loveliness and they make a beauU
ful contrast to the scenic displays of typ
ical Christmas in which snow and Ice and
bleak crags are the 'leading features.
Then there are hundreds of people whsj
are looking for a present for a young man
of dressy tastes. These in their wander
ings sometimes leave the bigger crowds on
Sixteenth and hunt out a furnishing goods
house with which the other parts of the
shopping district are dotted. The crowds
that are drawn to these places are diHtln
kulshed by the number of young people In
them. The youth who Is about to treat
hinifcl' or a boy friend to a gift naturally
thinks of something dressy to wear. The
young woman who is buying something
for her best boy friend knows she can't
miss It If sho invests In some fancy wear
ing apparel. Of course there Is Oj sprink
ling of old fclks In the furnlshltg goods
bouse shoppers, but they are compiiiutlvely
rare.
So the tramp, tramp of the secret agents
f Santa Claus Is heard not only on the
streat especially dedicated to his interests,
but also on tho outlying fringe where the
windov s may be smaller but the Inside at
tractions Just as great
Wlllla and Johnny end Supla will not
plead so hard to go down these streets
because they are devoted mostly to the In
terest of grown-ups, but they, too, contribute
much to the attractive power that draws
Omaha's army of gift buyers from their
homes to the downtown district and the
.army almost as big that come In front the
smaller towns over the state and Join the
local forces for a shopping Jaunt of a dftjr
or two. No one Omaha street or block
can Justly boast of a monopoly of the
attention of this grand unorganized or
ganization. The army lacks a visible
leader, but this would hardly be noticed
as every individual composing it Is actuated
by the same motive and drawn by the
same Impulse of giving. For this reason
the Indlvduals making up the army are
drawn along very much the same lines
and their patronage of one street or an
other depends on their ability to find the
place where that can satisfy their desire to
give.
v.
FINEST -OTIS If OltOANTH ALTER.