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THE COLBORNE EXPRESS, COLBORNE, ONT. FEB. 21. 1957 Queer Presents Royalty Receives Did you send the Queen a greetings card last Christmas? Thousands of people did, from all parts of the world -- and they're causing an acute secretarial problem at Buckingham Palace. Among the well-wishers are many socially ambitious folk who would like to boast that the Queen has sent them a Christmas card. They will be disappointed, however, for Her Majesty sends a "return card" only to people personally known to her. Every year the Queen's secretarial clerks -- hard - working Miss Luker and Miss Olivia Short -- make a gallant attempt to acknowledge all Christmas greetings. Nowadays, however, the postage bill is becoming so huge that the Household Treasurer would like to see the matter dealt with by the insertion of a phrase of thanks in Hie Queen's Christmas broadcast. The snag is that this might increase the loyal Christmas card avalanche -- and already the Palace has to pass a truck--load of cards to children's hospitals. Observance of tradition adds considerably to the Queen's Christmas mail, but sometimes this includes a gift which is of special appeal. For instance, Her Majesty always receives a posy of summer-time wild flowers from Australia. It would be difficult to imagine a gift more acceptable, in the gloom of an English winter. Another floral gift regularly received by the Queen each Christmas is a casket of white flowering thorn - sprigs from Glastonbury's Holy Thorn, sent to Her Majesty with seasonable greetings by the Mayor and Vicar of Glastonbury. The legend states that when Joseph of Arimathea first went there as a missionary, he stuck his thorn staff into the ground at Glastonbury and it took root and blossomed. Ever since then it has blossomed at Christmas. Similarly, the lairds of Foulis have to pay a bucket of snow as Christmas rent for their lands -- but if there is no snow at Christmas, the debt may be paid when next there is a snowfall. One Christmas gift was notice-mail last year. For many years a five pound note had been received from an anonymous well-wisher, and paid into Her Majesty's Charities Account. Attempts had been made to trace the sender, and this may have tjeen the reason for the non-receipt of the gift last year. The colossal Palace Christmas mail always includes a grand array of knitted garments for Prince Charles and Princess Anne. These present quite a problem. The givers so obviously mean well but presumably are ignorant Of the rule that gifts cannot be accepted from anyone unknown personally to the Royal Family. Usually such gifts are acknowledged by a tactful note from a lady-in-waiting. The Royal children have made use of some of these Christmas presents, but many find their way to a children's home. The year before last, we remember, Princess Margaret was sent so many boxes of chocolates that she could have opened a candy shop with the stock. Nearly all of them were sent to the National Institute for the Blind and distributed at a special party. An unusually heavy package gave the Queen's security officers cause for suspicion, but it proved to contain a chunk of Labrador rock, sent home by an emigrant in the hope that it might be allowed to rest on Windsor soil. Sticks of peppermint rock constituted another of the Queen's most unusual Yule-tide gifts. At Sandringham, a large room has to be used for storing Royalty's problem gifts. Always there is the hope that a use will be found for everything sooner or later, but many presents range from the impractical to the utterly weird. What gives the Queen most pleasure when her family presents are opened? Links of sentiment are forged by the Duke of Edinburgh's gifts of jewellery, and Her Majesty adores films of racing interest; many reels are included among her gifts, and these are added to her private film library. Another prize gift was the happy choice of an oil-painting of a race-horse that was a Royal favourite. The Queen's ideal gift was a portable typewriter given by Princess Margaret. Her Majesty had great fun learning to type letters to close relatives and friends. The Royal children are encouraged to prepare little homemade gifts, but the result is not always successful. For it's on record that the Queen opened a ^specially attractive package one year to find that it contained dog-biscuits ! Critical Years The human mind being what it is, the unusual, the outrageous, the spectacular tend to command its attention. How to "make righteousness readable" (to quote a great British editor) or to appear as prevalent as it really is poses a very considerable challenge. Every now and then an editor in sheer desperation tells his readers the big news of the day is the fact that millions of young men are not being killed in battle, that the great majority of family circles do affectionately endure, and that all but a small minority of neighbours continue living side by side in harmony and mutual regard. All of this holds true with respect to juvenile delinquency versus normal, energetic, inexperienced youth. And it is like-authority on this subject than those who have dedicated their careers to organizations such as the YMCA. One of its officials wrote recently to an inquiring friend: Too little is known generally about the wholesome and constructive activities of the majority of young people. We see hundreds of them coming to our various centers, busy in social activities, in clubs, in classes, and on teams. We hear them discussing matters of importance to their present and their future. We sense open-minded-ness, wholesome curiosity, honesty and integrity. We see them looking forward to careers that make contributions to society. The existence of this nondeliquent majority is no accident. The home has had a hand in the formative years. So has the church and the school. And then there are civic-minded agencies like the "Y" which provide a focus of activity and a steadying influence during teens and late adolescence -- the critical years, when youth is struggling to understand itself and to find a satisfying way into adulthood. -- From The Christian Science Monitor. BOYS WILL BE BOYS--This four-way combo shows Prince Charles swapping punches with a fellow pupil on January 29, the second day of his precedent-shattering attendance at an exclusive London boys' school. "The Prince had a slight difference of opinion with a fellow pupil," a London newspaper reported. At upper left, upper right and lower left Charles is shown at right. In last photo he is at left. The paper said "Charles won by giving his opponent one hefty shove." TABLE TALKS cJawz, Andrews. HEART-STOPPING STATISTICS - Diseases of the heart and circulation system claimed 810,200 lives in the United States during 1955, more than all other causes of death combined. Too many of us, when we plan having chicken, think only of the younger -- and more expensive! -- birds, fit for roasting and frying. This is a great mistake as the older fowl, if properly cooked of course, have a flavour and goodness all their own. Stewing Chicken Stewing chicken has always played an important role in meal planning. Its meat is so often the choice for chicken salads, pies, shortcakes, sandwiches, croquettes, casseroles and soups. Stewing and braising, moist-heat methods, are used for cooking this mature, less tender chicken. Moist heat is required to soften its connective tissue and low to moderate heat is the rule. Place whole or cut-up stewing chicken in a kettle. For each pound of chicken, add % to 1 cup of water and % teaspoon salt. The quantity of water used depends on the amount of broth wanted. For additional flavour, add 3 or 4 pepper berries, 1 small carrot, 1 small onion, 2 ribs of celery and a clove. Simmer chicken until the thickest portions are fork-tender -- 2% to 4 hours. Remove chicken, then cool chicken and broth promptly. Cover and refrigerate unless chicken is to be used immediately. One pound of stewing chicken will yield about 1 cup diced cooked chicken meat. Braised Fowl To braise an older bird, tuck the legs into the band of skin under the tail. Place the bird, breast up on a rack in a large kettle. Pour in boiling water up to rack but not over the bird. Cover the kettle and let water boil gently but not furiously. Add more boiling water as required. After 1% hours steaming, remove bird. Stuff bird with your favourite stuffing, truss, coat with fat and sprinkle with salt. Place on a rack in a roasting pan. Add 1 cup of broth from steaming kettle. Cover and cook in a moderate oven of 350 degrees until fowl is tender -- lVt to 2 hours. Turn the bird occasionally to fit's the wrong number, mister -- er -- what is the name,, please?" cook it evenly. If the bird is not browned by the time it is tender, ejook for a short time without the lid. Chicken with Dumplings S to 4 pounds stewing chicken Salt and pepper Flour 1 can (15-oz.) peas 1 medium size onion 1 cup diced celery 1 cup packaged biscuit mix Cut chicken into serving pieces and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Dredge with flour. Brown in a saucepan. Pour off excess fat. Dram liquid from peas. Measure and add enough water to make 4 cups of liquid. Pour over browned pieces of chicken. Add sliced onion and celery. Cover and simmer Vh to 3 hours. Remove chicken pieces. Thicken liquid with a thin flour and water paste. Replace chicken in thickened gravy. Add pea. Make dumplings according to directions on package ef biscuit mix. Serves six. Fruit Squares 1 cup sifted bread (all purpose) flour 1 teaspoon baking powder Vi teaspoon salt Z eggs, beaten 1 cup brown sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla % cup filberts Y\ cup chopped maraschino cherries 1 cup dates, chopped 94 cup raisins Line bottom of 8-inch square pan with foil. Grease foil and Valued Keepsakes When a Midlands cinema was shut down recently, a fifty-three-year-old housewife was offered two of its seats to take away and keep as souvenirs, because she had spent nearly 18,-000 hours in one of them She had visited the cinema three times a week for forty-five years, and the man who had courted and married her had usfcl the other seat. For that housewife the seats will always be sentimental reminders of her courting days. Not since 1940, when a Birmingham man bought and erected in his dining-room the paving-stone on which he had proposed to his wife, has there been such an instance of devotion to inanimate objects connected with affairs of the heart. A rich Frenchman treasured for years a dainty cambric handkerchief, keeping it in a glass sides of pan. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Beat eggs until they are thick and light. Gradually beat in sugar, then vanilla. Stir in mixed and sifted dry ingredients. Then fold in nuts and fruit. Spread batter in prepared pan. Bake in a moderate Oven for 40 minutes. Cool. Cut in squares and remove from pan. Makes 48. Nut Crisps '4 cup shortening Vi cup sugar 1 egg, well beaten Vt cup filberts or other nuts, chopped Vi cup dates, chopped Vi teaspoon vanilla Vi teaspoon salt %Vi cups ready-to-serve flaked cereal, crumbled Grease baking sheet. Heat Oven to 350 degrees. Blend shortening and sugar thoroughly. Beat in egg, then stir in nuts, dates, vanilla, salt and cereal. Press mixture into rounded bowl of tablespoon and drop on greased baking sheet. Bake in moderate oven for 10 minutes. They crisp as they cool. Makes 2 dozen. case in his bedroom. One night when he was at the theatre a thief broke in and stole it with other articles. When he discovered his loss the owner revealed to the police that, twenty years earlier, that handkerchief had dried the tears of a petite mindinette who had jilted him on the day before they were due to wed. He offered a reward of $5,000 for its return; but never saw it again. In Vienna before the war a romantic young count sat one evening with a lovely, black-haired Viennese girl in a cafe, where he had met her by chance a few hours before. An orchestra played, they drank wine and the count was deliriously happy, realizing that he was in love for the first time. But that proved their first and only meeting. The girl happened to be married, and when she told him it* nearly broke his heart. Next day he astonished the cafe proprietor by offering him a big sum for the table at which the pair had sat. It was transported to his home in France, where it has had a place of honour in his sitting-room ever since. And he is still a bachelor. A bottle, tossed over the side of a ship, brought romance to a pretty Irish girl. She was driving some cows to a field by the sea on the south-west coast, when she spotted the bottle on the shore. Inside was a note written by a serviceman on Christmas night a year earlier. It read: "I am an American soldier . . . twenty-one years old . . . This is my third Christmas from home . . ." The girl wrote back warmly. Seven years and seventy letters passed before the American saved up enough money to visit Ireland. Reporters got hold of the story and pressed for the wedding date. But all the ex-soldier would say was: "She's very Said the blushing milkmaid: "After all, we only met a few hours ago. Up to then he was only a man in a bottle." The older a person gets, th« wilder the younger generation becomes. WIRED FOR DREAMS - Volunteer subject at the Sleep Research Institute dreams away her tour of duty while tiny electrodes, attached to various skin surfaces of her body, transmit electric waves generated by the brain, heart rate and body temperature. The minute currents pass through the panel on the head of the bed and are recorded as part of a continuing, 11 -year study of the mystery of sleep. Readings have been taken while hundreds of men and women have racked up a total, to date, of more than 20,000 sleeping hours in some 3,500 nights ol study. SOMETHING'S IN THE WIND - Surer than the first robin, skates afoot are a sign that springtime Is making her first tentative advances. Jimmy, left, and "Skeeter" Ward take advantage of a break in the weather to go sail-skating with the aid of an old bed sheet.