Thursday, December 2, 2004

100 years ago: Thumbprint-collecting was proving a "most interesting" hobby and a pleasant rival to stamp-collecting, and an album, appropriately entitled "Thumb-o-graphs," was admirably suited to the purpose. Fitted to the cover of the album was a little inkpad in a metal case. The victim first pressed his thumb firmly on the pad and then on the white page of the album, leaving a clear impression of "all those mysterious whorls and spirals which Nature seems to produce in such infinite variety." It should be the aim of the fingerprint collector to know all the different lines and curves of his prints so well that a moment's glance would enable him to distinguish between those of a poet and those of a parson or of a statesman and a "man in the street."

50 years ago: Christmas, said Mr Nobody, was becoming commercialised. He told of a woman choosing greeting cards, who exclaimed: "They are dragging religion into it now!" At one time, the city waits had paraded the streets of York on five successive Monday mornings preceding Christmas, serenading the citizens with an ancient air, then saluting the heads of each important house by name. Going a-wassailing in the East Riding used to be a children's ceremony. They went from house to house, carrying figures of the Virgin and Child in Milly (My Lady) boxes, filled with spices and sugar by those visited. At the Christmas horse fair, dealers came from all parts and interpreters found plenty of patronage due to the number of foreign buyers. Hundreds of horses were sold in York's inn yards, and at the fairground from Micklegate Bar to the Mount, but the occasions afforded such scope for roguery that their popularity was gradually reduced.

25 years ago: A health conference in the Yorkshire region weighed the problems of the smoker against the freedom of the individual, and came up with a number of conclusions. Five points would be put to York Health District Authority: the banning of smoking on acute hospital wards; the introduction of no smoking wards; designated smoking areas; health education in all hospitals; and the end of cigarette sales from hospital trolleys.

Updated: 09:04 Thursday, December 02, 2004