The inmates to the union house were regaled on Christmas Day with a plentiful dinner of roast beef and plum pudding, with porter, tobacco, and snuff for the adults; fruits and sweets for the children. The hall was splendidly decorated for the occasion with the Royal Standard and flags of other nations, the Crown, with the initials, "VR" the fleur-de-lis, stars monograms, pendants, texts, and mottoes, in abundance, capitally got up, and very appropriate. Infirmary, the schools, the nursery and every department of the house, also bore signs of the festive season, and the inmates, old and young officers and paupers heartily enjoying themselves for once in a way to the utmost, there seem to be the greatest unanimity and goodwill existing among them.

The West Sussex Journal 30 December 1873

Contributed by Malcolm Davison.