TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10049, 21 May 1910, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

THE SEDAN CHAIR. It is curious (o hear of a revival cf the use of the Sedan chair at the present time, says the Liverpool Post. Nevertheless it is a fact. At Dresden, and also at other places, on the Contine/it, it has lately been in- i troduced, and is rapidly becoming fashionable among the ladies who go their rounds "shopping," borne by smaitiy-untformed chair-bearers. The chairs are mostly "taxi-chairs," let out on hire, and are by many preferred to either the cab or motor-car where time is not an important object, and where distance is not a consideration as in the matter of shopping, above mentioned, or paying a rourd ct calls within the city boundary, or, in other words, at the town houses of their fiiends. After all, this revival is not so strange ias it may appear at first sight. There are two laws which rule the progress of civilisation in all its departments. The first is that we progress in circles. The second is tha process of reaction, popularly known as the swing pendulum. The result may be symbolised by the incoming tide; each wave advances and recedes, but is followed by one which advances a little further. Then the Sedan chair gave place at the beginning of last century to the cab, the cab to ths motor-car. The motor-car has given us a eurfeit in the matter of (speed, and the Sedan chaic comes in on the wave ct reaction.