CHRISTMAS-BOX, a small money-gift to persons in an inferior condition on the day after Christmas, which is hence popularly called boxingalay. The term, and also the custom, are essentially English, though the making of presents at this season and at the new year is of great antiquity. A number of interesting particulars concerning the Christmas-box will be found in Brand's Popular Antiquities. Here, we need refer only to the usage in its later aspect. Within the memory of middle-aged persons, the practice of giving Christmas-boxes, or petty presents, to apprentices, domestic servants, and tradesmen, had become a serious social nuisance, more particularly in Loudon, where every old custom seems to linger, and is most difficult to be got rid of. Householders felt under an obligation to give money to the apprentices in the shops where they dealt, also to various inferior parish officers, including scavengers and lamplighters; while shopkeepers, on the other hand, were equally impelled to make presents to the male and female servants of their customers. Thus, as referred to in Christmas, a poem:
" Gladly, the boy, with Christmas-box in hand, Throughout the town his devious route pursues; And, of his master's customers, implores The yearly mite: often his cash he shakes; The which, perchance. of coppers few consists, Whose dulcet jingle fills his little soul With joy." At length the Christmas-box system became such an intolerable grievance, that trades men stuck up notices in their windows that no Christmas-boxes would be given; and at the same time, the public authorities issued remonstrances to the same effect. At Christmas, 1836, the secretary of state for foreign affairs issued a circular to the different embassies, requesting a discontinuance of the customary gifts to the messengers of the foreign department, and other government servants. Since this period, the practice has greatly decreased, doubtless to the improvement of the self-respect of the parties interested.