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As
the story goes, Herbert Schwartz President of Maison
Blanche chose the name for their new, little holly-winged
Christmas mascot for several reasons. The name Mr. Bingle
rhymed with Kris Kringle, thus giving it a "holiday
ring;" and the initials were that of the landmark
department store that had graced Canal Street since
1897. The rest is history --- Mr. Bingle lived at his
Maison Blanche "Home" for 50 years until 1998.
Was there actually more behind the inspiration
for which Schwartz donned the name "Mr. Bingle"
upon Santa's little helper? It's very possible. . .
Interestingly, 33 years before Mr. Bingle made his first
appearance at Maison Blanche in New Orleans, George
Barr McCutcheon's Christmas novel Mr. Bingle
was published in 1915 by Dodd, Mead and Company. An
accomplished, best-selling author in his day and better
known for his numerous romance novels such as Graustark
(1901) and Jane Cable (1906), as well as Brewster's
Millions (1903) for which six movies have been made,
McCutcheon (1866-1928) already had 25 novels to his
credit before he wrote Mr. Bingle (1915.) He
wrote a total of 42 novels before his death in 1928.
Twenty-five of his novels were made into silent films
or movies, and McCutcheon was listed in Who was Who
in America in 1929.
McCutcheon's Mr. Bingle, with its underlying
theme of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol throughout,
is the story of Mr. and Mrs. Bingle, a childless couple
who take less fortunate children into their modest New
York apartment every Christmas Eve and provide dinner
and gifts for them. Before dinner and gift time, however,
Mr. Bingle performs his yearly ritual by reading Charles
Dickens' A Christmas Carol as the children sit
patiently, yet eager to get on with the Christmas festivities.
It was Mr. Bingle's belief that Dickens' classic, A
Christmas Carol, helped to teach children good qualities
as well as the real meaning of giving. Here are a couple
of excerpts from McCutcheon's Mr. Bingle pages
3-5:
"It was Christmas Eve. There were signs of the
season in every corner of the plain but cosy little
sitting-room. Mistletoe hung from the chandelier; gay
bunting and strands of gold and silver tinsel draped
the bookcase and the writing desk; holly and myrtle
covered the wall brackets, and red tissue paper shaded
all of the electric globes; big candles and little candles
flickered on the mantelpiece, and some were red and
some were white and yet others were green and blue with
paint that Mr. Bingle had applied with earnest though
artless disregard for subsequent odours; packages done
up in white with red ribbon, neatly double-bowed, formed
a significant centrepiece for the ornate mahogany library
table --- and one who did not know the Bingles would
have looked about in quest of small fry with popping,
covetous eyes and sleekly brushed hair. The alluring
scent of gaudily painted toys pervaded the Christmas
atmosphere, quite offsetting the hint of steam from
more fortunate depths, and one could sniff the odour
of freshly buttered popcorn. All these signs spoke of
children and the proximity of Kris Kringle, and yet
there were no little Bingles, nor had there ever been
so much as one!"
" . . . No Christmas Eve was allowed to go by
without the presence of alien offspring about their
fire-lit hearth, and no strange little kiddie ever left
for his own bed without treasuring in his soul the belief
that he had see Santa Claus at last --- had been kissed
by him, too --- albeit the plain-faced, wistful little
man with the funny bald-spot was in no sense up to the
preconceived opinions of what the roly-poly, white-whiskered,
red-cheeked annual visitor from Lapland ought to be
in order to make dreams come true."
In his novel, McCutcheon's Mr. Bingle character was
in the real sense Santa's helper, as was our beloved
Maison Blanche Mr. Bingle since 1948. Did George Barr
McCutcheon's 1915 book inspire Herbert Schwartz? We
will never know for certain. However, we can be sure
Mr. Bingle still lives in the hearts of those who will
always remember him, as well as for those who choose
to never allow
"The Spirit of Mr. Bingle" to fade.
Copyright © September 2002
by Ashleigh Austin
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