TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11509, 16 February 1903, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Prom the musty leaves of Old English old account books, long Country Life, tables of prices and forgotten reports, the late Mr Thorold Rogera has amassed considerable information ooncerning some interesting aspects of life in the Eighteenth century, which, until recently, . were little known. In the concluding two volume, of (his "History of Agriculture and Prices in England from 1259 to 1793," an entertaining glimpse is caught, in the first place, of the English country gentleman of the latter period. "The full-bottomed wig costing £20, the periwig costing £7 7s, the scarlet satin waistcoat and breeches foi Master Chomley, the family post coach costing £136, the puff and powder box ■for Lord Morpeth, the Bohea at a guinea a pound, and the Hyson at thirty shillings " —all are noted. " It is easy," as an English reviewer remarks, "from the few materials here given, to put together a picture of the life at an old English mansion. Master Chomley strutting to church on Sunday in his scarlet vest and! breeches, with Mise in her pink bonnet j and white stockings; my Lord going forth in tho morning with his heavy flint and steel gun, his high-bred setter following at' his heels, and his shooting-coat reaching down to his ankles; the handsome lum-' bering family coach drawn up at the hall I door, with the four horses and postilions! ready to cany the party to York races,! or to fashionable Scarborough." Of even more value is the record of agricultural wages and prices, in those days when the farm labourer was more prosperous than j he has ever been before or after, until! within the last thirty years. Wages rose slowly from the beginning of the century until its middle, when the labourer received, on an average, 7s a week, and 10s at harvest. This was the zenith of his good fortune, for though by the end of the century he was getting 8s a week and 18s at harvest, representing an increase ot j one-eighth, the cost of living had risen far more than proportionately. Then fol- j lowed a period of depression, from which,! according to our English reviewer, the j farm labourer has since totally recovered, j without recovering any of his former happiness and contentment. It will be re- J membered that in the Vicar of Wakefield,' Goldsmith dwells with admiring attention: upon these qualities, in the small farmers •if his day. " The place of our retreat was in a Tittle neighbourhood consisting of farmers, who tilled their own grounds, and were equal strangers to opulence and poverty. As they had almost all the conveniences of life within themselves, they seldom visited towns or cities in search of •mperfluitiea. Remote from the polite, they <tlill retained the primeval simplicity of manners; and, frugal by habit, they scarce knew that temperance was a virtue. They, vrought with cheerfulness on days ot labour, but observed festivals as intervals of idleness and pleasure. They kept np> the_ Christmas carol, sent true-love-knots j on Valentine morning, ate pancakes on:

Shrovetide, and religiously cracked nuts on Michaelmas eve." At least one-half of tho labourers, however, were unmarried men, who lodged and boarded with their employers. In this way they lived better, at least, than the labourer with a roof of his own in the middle of the last century. Apart from this, the faith worke* of the present time is proved to have all the advantage over his predecessor, even in the litter's palmiest days. In spite of this, he is less independent, and infinitely less happy. When Marconi declared that Marconi, he would send messages by wireless telegraphy from Canada to England, the sceptics laughed. The feat accomplished, he has just received, a cablegram published this morning states, by the King, who was recently enabled by his help to exchange messages with President Bocsevelt. Marconi is only twenty-seven years of age, and a writer in the "Daily Express* describes hini as j-ounger looking than his age— keen-eyed, thin-lipped, neatly-dressed, with a peculiarly-shaped head, the whole height appearing to be in front, with a pronounced slopa towards the back. His appearance gives no indScation of his inventivo faculties, but it is easy to see in him signs of the tireless worker, with unhesitating confidence in his own abilities. Given a difficult problem, he works at it niglit and day continuously, and expects his assistants to do likewise. While absorbed in experiments he allows no outside business of any kind to disturb him, and when ho went into retreat near Bournemouth before his last departure for Canada, important engagements were several times neglected for tbo -ako of his work. On first leaving tho University of Bologna, Marconi had a great Irking tor chemistry, and took much interest also in steam engines. His passion for elecir_c.iwork came afterwards, and more fortunate than most inventors, lie was never short of money to enable him to giatify his tastei. and conduct his experiments. "The proudest moment of' my life,'' he told an interviewer, "was when I sent the first signal from one room to another. I cannot rte-,j scribe my anxiety while preparing for this test, or my joy when it proved successful." 'ihe creat inventor has always appreciated, fama, and from the date of his first experi- j merits, near Griffore, Italy, he pA>ph_sied to his relatives that the system would outday be used the world over. After the first success already spoken of, his father allowed him to erect poles on his estate, and finally Marconi was suooassful in sending messages two miles. Now he is not satisfied with having sent them across the Atlantic, but is sanguine of far greater triumphs. Ambitious as he is, he laughed at the idea that, in poorer circumstance! 1 , he would ever have starved himself to find money to push has system. "I have too good a digestion," he replied.