"The Good Old Days" Humbug.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 213, 30 July 1887, Page 3

"The Good Old Days" Humbug.

Men ninety 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 whether he would roach there in a day or a week. Noav we know how many hours and minutes it requires to make the trip. Men now sixty years old remember when there wero no railroads, but all travel on land was done by stages, by wag goiib, by oxteams, on hor&eback, and on foot. Now a network of railroads covers the whole country, and several lines xun from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Now it requires only six or seven days to cross the continent. Formerly the trip required three months. Men iifty years old remember when there were no photographs, but only paintings and drawings, made at great prices, of objects now done better at a trifling cost. Men of that age also remember when no steam-boat crossed the ocean, and it was believed that they never could, but now hundreds of steamshipb ore ploughing every ocean, reducing the time of crossing the Atlantic from weeks to days. Men forty-five yeais old remember when there was no electric-plating, but everything in that line was done in the oklfasluoned, slow way. Men of that age also lemember when there wero no telegraphs, but all messages had to be sent by slow-going mails. Men twenty-live years old remember when there weie 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 day* ? Why not 1 pass a law forbidding steamboats from ploughing the waters, railroads from running on 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 (o be melted for old iron, evil water-works in the citie3 to be left empty, the use of all gas and other illuminators, except dipped tnllow candles, to be discontinued, and ically to go back to the "good old times," say for iivo years ? Then, if at midnight on a cold, stormy night, a doctor is wanted, he mii'-fc be sent for instead of telephoning for him. If one wishes to send a message to a distance, instead of telegraphing he must ■write a letter and Fend ib 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 side while freezing the other, and reading by the dim light of a tallow clip instead of a gaslight or the more agreeable light of keiosene. If ho undertakes a journey, instead of getting into cars and going where ho 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 those 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 now enjoy, and for which we ought to be most devoutly thankful.