The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1867-02-06
Taking the Nineteenth century down


pool, gave q lecture In Dumfries last month
on "The Good Old Times" We extract
the following passage:
Men did as wonderful intellectual feats
1000 and 5000 years ago as are done in
the present time. Ii il be true that man
was only an improved gorilla, we don't find
that he allowed a greater resemblance to
it then than now; for his own part, he be-
lieved there were more monkeys now than
then, and possibly the gorilla might not SO
much represent the race from which We
sprang a. the destiny to which we are has
tening. Abraham he believed TO be Is
thoroughbred Q gentleman a. any In the
nineteenth century Jacob as good Q maj
Of business as they would find on the
Liverpool Exchange while Joseph was .
statesman and Moses q legislator, worth .
great deal more in their time than all our
lords, commons, and town councils put to-
gether.
In our own country, in the 10th and 18th
centuries, there were hundreds OF men
who, for brains and the use Of them, would
stand comparison with any that adorned
this century. We had some splendid re
mains of architecture in this country, and
we vainly attempted to equal the edlices
of which they are the ruins. The very
best we have are only bits taken from edl-
fees erected hundreds Of years ago. Our
mechanical appliances for building are far
superior TO what could have been known 10
the people of the olden times, but they
reared up buildings that are the just aston
ishment of the civilized world, and which
we cannot equal. We may copy them,
but we may copy q painting Of an old mas
ter, but, till We strike out something of our
own asgood as the Parthenou or Strasburg
Cathedral, we must knock down to the old
times.
We think we 10 oil things Gu : grand
scale, and a Cocknoy will boast that the
largest theatre in London will hold 1000
people 10000 would scarcely have filled
the Coliseum OF Rome. st. Georges
Hall, Liverpool, is justly regarded as a
very magnificent building, lat it was only a
reproduction of q very little bit of the
Baths Of Diocletian, which were nearly a
quarter of a mile square, the whole struc-
ture being a very great deal larger than
our Houses of Parliament. Some moderns
said il the people of the ancient times
could revisit the earth, they would be very
much astonished. He had no doubt they
would, but he would be sorry if they die
in case they should only laugh at us. Pos
sibly our great-fathers who lived in that
stupidest of all centuries-the eighteenth
would be astonished, but not the men Of
two thousand years ago.
We thought we had made great progress
in sanitary science, but he believed We
were at a disadvantage compared with the
sncients. In Rome alone there were 500
public baths, and it never had more than
half the population of London. They had
hot, cold, and vapor bathS-and something
like our Turkish bath, and, what was bet
ter still, the people constantly used them.
We boosted of our civil engineering, but
it was questionable if it had advanced
much since the time when the Romans
built their aqueducts, which were carried
over valleys, supported on thousands of
arches, or tunnelled for miles through the
solid rock, while the greatest scientific
skill was required to give the supply a pro-
per grade.
There was a great deal Of talk about that
wonderful triumph of genius, bringing the
water of Loeb Katrine TO Glasgow, but the
quantity of water delivered to every in
habitant of Rome was ten times the water
supply O fLondon. An abundant supply of
water was q special characteristic of an
cient cities. We often read of the inhabi-
tants Of a besieged city suffering from hum
ger, but rarely, If ever, from thirst. And
there was 10 overcrowding. Nineveh con-
tanned COO, 900 inhabitants, but the popula-
ton OF London was, for its area, five times
as dense as that OF Nineveh. The ancients
did not allow the dead to be buried within
the walls of their cities-a practice only
beginning to be abolished with us. In point
of cleanliness, also, they were more careful
than we are. He read the other day of
some people taking cholera from washing
the clothes of persons who had died of that
malady. According to the Mosaic law,
these clothes should have been buried.
Moses would not allow persons to live in
houses that were unhealthy, but it was no
use turning the people out and allowing
the house TO stand; he knew people would
live in il if it remained, and so he said
"Down with every stick and stone OF it,
In the matter Of sewerage the Romans
were superior to us. The city was built
on arches for the purpose of complete sew
erage, and there yet remain a sewer in
Rome so wide that q cart loaded with hay
might pass through it. Excellent and
well-contrived drains had been discovered
in Nineveh and other towns. The refuse
of the cities was burned in the open plains.
The hand-looms of thirty thousand years
ago produced cloth of as fine p quality, in
point of texture, color, and style, as we
can produce, and the Hindoos, and some
of the Africans, knew the process of manu-
featuring iron and steel, which led them to
look upon with contempt, and to reject as
rotten, the specimens of these metals which
we sent them. In all these points the past
compared favorably with the present.
No doubt the present had its achieve
ments. 1t had the printing-press and rail-
roads, telegraphs, and extensive manufac-
tories. He believed that its superiority
consisted more in the greater power of
production, and in the. wider diffusion of
wealth and knowledge than obtained in
the past, rather than in the intrinsic excel
lence, or beauty, or brilliancy, or depth of
what it did or achieved. 1t eXcelled in
the extent to which it had investigated
the laws and operations of nature, and ap-
piled them to the increase Of human
power over matter. Before, however,
they boosted themselves too much Of mo-
dern progress they ought to inquire whe-
Their the progress made was commensurate
with their opportunities. He very much
doubted if there were any room for boast
ing. Looking at the w~retchedness, profit
gacy. drunkenness, and general degrade.