[Editor: This article, by “Daddy Redgum”, regarding the New Year, was published in the “Children’s New Year Supplement” of the Sunday Times (Sydney, NSW), 28 December 1924.]
A Happy New Year to all
Then the New Year himself will make his bow, and before we can say “Jack Harkaway,” he will have presented us with not just one or two gifts, but with three hundred and sixty-five of them! Each parcel will be wrapped separately and tied with colored string.
For these will be the gift days of the New Year 1925. Every morning when we wake we shall, whether we know it or not, undo the string and take the wrapping off one of the New Year’s gifts. For some of us, many of these parcels will bear inscriptions, such as “A Birthday Party,” “A Pantomime,” “A Rollicking Day on the Beach,” or even “A Trip to England.”
But for the majority of us, most of the New Year’s parcels will bear no inscription at all. They will be blank. We shall have to color them ourselves.
You have all seen those painting books with colored and blank pages? On one page there are brightly colored patterns and the other page is left blank for us to color as we choose. The blank days of the New Year are very like the blank pages in the painting book.
We select the color scheme that pleases us most. For instance, there is the grey, gloomy shade of sulkiness and discontent, and the gilt-edged rainbow tints of friendliness and happiness. Which color do you like best?
That you may have every day of the New Year gilt-edged with the spirit of happiness that is within you is the sincere wish of
DADDY REDGUM.
Source:
Sunday Times (Sydney, NSW), 28 December 1924, p. 1 of the Children’s New Year Supplement
Editor’s notes:
carillon = a set of bells, typically hung in a tower, which are commonly operated either by a keyboard, pedals, or by mechanical means; a tune arranged for, or played on, carillon bells
See: 1) “1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Carillon”, Wikisource [Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 5, 1911]
2) “carillon: musical instrument”, Encyclopaedia Britannica
3) “Carillons & chimes”, The National Bell Festival
4) “About carillons”, The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America
5) “Carillon”, Wikipedia
Father Time = (also known as: Old Man Time) a personification of time; Father Time is typically depicted as an old man with a long beard, dressed in a robe, holding a scythe, and carrying an hourglass
See: 1) “Father Time”, Wikipedia
2) “Father Time (pictures)”, IAC list (on Trove)
Jack Harkaway = a character of literary fiction, popular in the late 19th century; Jack Harkaway first appeared in 1871, in a serial story written by English author Bracebridge Hemyng (1841-1901)
See: 1) Siobhan Lam, “Jack Harkaway of penny dreadful fame”, The Victorian Web, 12 August 2007
2) Stephen Basdeo, “Jack Harkaway: The Victorian Harry Potter”, Reynolds’s News and Miscellany, 26 Jun 2019
3) “Jack Harkaway”, Public Domain Super Heroes (Fandom)
4) “Hemyng, Bracebridge”, The Beadle and Adams Dime Novel Digitization Project (Northern Illinois University)
5) “Bracebridge Hemyng”, Wikipedia
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