A very peculiar view of Santa is found in 1851’s, “A Visit to the Dominions of Santa Claus”, part of The Little Messenger Birds by Caroline Butler-Laing (184-1892), an American children’s writer. This book introduced the world to the notion of proletarian elves employed in a workshop or warehouse setting. The Santa who directs these knee-high assistants sports an Elizabethan doublet, short pants and an Arabian head-dress that, combined with a cruel moustache and goatee, gives him the appearance of a villainous magician out of Aladdin.
Judging by Santa’s treatment of his employees in Butler-Laing’s book, the artist seems to have captured the inner man correctly. According to the author, Santa’s magic spectacles can spot the tiniest flaw in workmanship, an attribute which causes his elves no little anxiety “because they know if their work was not done, well, they should be banished to the Dark Room, where they made such ugly things for bad children, as bags of soot and ashes, pots of elbow-grease, sharpened birch twigs, and put in order cats-o’-nine-tails, which, when properly used, make the most dreadful screaming of any cats in the world!”