There is a constant demand for novelties in playthings and the public expects to be supplied each Christmas with new and original ones – something unlike anything that was ever seen or heard of before.

A very large percentage of the toys come from Germany where the cost of labor is less than it is in the United States. In Germany the peasants, content with a wage of a few cents a day, pursue the occupation as a sort of household industry, even the little children helping their parents to carve, stuff, glue and mold. From the neighborhood of Sonneberg alone, in the Thuringian mountains, more than $3,000,000 worth of wooden and papier mache toys are shipped to this county every year.

50 years ago, 1957

• Soon after it was disclosed that Russia was outstripping us in production of scientists, there was much silly talk of a “crash program” of science education that would allow us to catch up. Now some sober thinking has resulted in the finding that while science and math teaching must be improved and expanded, the entire school system itself needs to be revised in the direction of a far better quality.

• Holiday mail cancellations jumped above the one million mark at the Lewiston Post Office over the weekend while in Auburn the total surpassed the total for the same 22-day period last December.

25 years ago, 1982

WASHINGTON – Five sites in Maine were included Monday on a list of the nation’s worst hazardous waste dumping areas, making them eligible to share in $1.6 billion in federal cleanup money. The sites include: The McKin Co. property in Gray; the “O’Connor site” in Augusta; Pinette’s Salvage yard in Washburn; the Saco Tanning waste pits in Saco; and the Winthrop landfill.

FARMINGTON – A warm overcast afternoon greeted those celebrating Chester Greenwood Day and the first day of winter on Tuesday. A three-inch snow cover provided the youngsters a chance to roll and tumble in the soft white stuff while they waited for the parade in downtown Farmington.