Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1887 — “THE GOOD OLD DATS” HUMBUG. [ARTICLE]

“THE GOOD OLD DATS” HUMBUG.

Evidence tlmt They Were Not What They Are Said to Have Been. Men 90 years old remember -when there were no steamboats, but all travel on the water was done by the slow, uncertain means of sailing vessels, when if one started for New York it was doubtful if he would reach there in a day or a week. Now we know how many hours and minutes it requires to make the trip. Men now 60 years old remember when there were no railroads, but all travel on land was done by stages, by wagons, by ox teams, on horseback, and on foot. Now a network of railroads covers the whole country, and several lines lun from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Now it requires only six or seven days to cross the continent. Formerly that trip required three months. Men 50 years old remember when there were no photographs, but only paintings and drawings, made at great prices, of objects now done better in an inst mt at trifling cost. Men of that age also remem bar when no steamboat crossed the ocean, and it was believed that they never could, but now hundreds of steamships are plowing every ocean, reducing the time of crossing the Atlantic from weeks to days. Men 45 years old remember when there was no electro-plating, but everything in that line was done in the oldfashioned, slow way. Men of that age also remember when there were no telegraphs, but all messages had to be sent by the slow-going mails. Men 25 years old remember when there were no telephones, but all the : messages now spoken through them had to be sent by note or special messenger. All these grand and useful inventions have been made within the memory of men now living. The younger generation can never appreciate them as those do who remember the want of them and therefore the great convenience they are to the world. We often hear of “the good old days of yore. ” Why deprive our children of the enjoyment of those old days? Why not pass a law forbidding steamboats from plowing the waters, railroads from running land, telegraphs from sending messages, telephones from being used, all furnaces, steam heaters, etc., to be taken out of houses and other building, all grates for burning coal to be taken out, all stoves to be melted for old iron, all waterworks in cities to be left empty, the use of all gas and other illuminators, except dipped tallow candles, to be discontinued, and really to go back to the “good old times,” say for five years. Then, if at midnight on a cold, stormy night, a doctor is wanted, he must be sent for instead of teleiphoning for him. If one wishes to send a message to a distance, instead of tel-, egraphing he must send a letter and send it by stages to a distant place, and wait patiently for days or weeks for the answer. When one goes home on a freezing night he can sit by a wood fire, roasting on one s'de while freezing the other, and reading by the dim light of a tallow dip instead of the blaze of a gaslight or the more agreeable light of kerosene. If he undertakes a journey, instead of getting into cars and going where he wishes, the best thing he can do is to take a stage at four times the cost and ten times the discomfort of the cars. Let these and other modern improvements be forbidden and the “good old days” be brought back, how long would it be before an extra session of the Legislature would be demanded to knock the “good old days” into splinters, and to restore the much better modern days which we now enjoy, and for which we ought to be most devoutly thankful?— Bridgeport Standard.