_Santa Claus._--Reading _The Wide Wide World_ recalled to my mind this
curious custom, which I had remarked when in America. I was then not a
little surprised to find so strange a superstition lingering in puritanical
New England, and which, it is needless to remark, was quite novel to me.
_Santa Claus_ I believe to be a corruption of _Saint Nicholas_, the
tutelary saint of sailors, and consequently a great favourite with the
Dutch. Probably, therefore, the custom was introduced into the western
world by the compatriots of the renowned Knickerbocker.
It is unnecessary to describe the nature of the festivity, as it is so
graphically pourtrayed in Miss Wetherell's, or rather Warner's work, to
which I would refer those desirous of further acquaintance with the
subject; the object of this Query being to learn, through some of the
American or other correspondents of "N. & Q.," the original legend, as well
as the period and events connected with the immigration into "The States"
of that beneficent friend of Young America, _Santa Claus_.