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 prizes I have seen were worth over one pound." OTHER SEASONABLE HOSPITALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. The good example set by royalty is followed throughout the land. Friendly hospitalities are general at Christmastide, and in London and other large centres of population many thousands of poor people are provided with free breakfasts, dinners, teas, and suppers on Christmas Day, public halls and school-rooms being utilised for purposes of entertainment; children in hospitals are plentifully supplied with toys, and Christmas parties are also given to the poor at the private residences of benevolent people. As an illustrative instance of generous Christmas hospitality by a landowner we cite the following:-- CHRISTMAS DINNER TO FIVE THOUSAND POOR.