The Plymouth weekly Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1860-1869, 1868-02-06
ODden Times.


In those days, people drank green tea,
and ate heavy suppers, and went to bed
with warming pans and night-caps, aud
slept 90 feather beds with curtains round
them, and dreaded fresh air in their rooms
as much as sensible folks nova days dread
to be without it. And if they heard a
noise in the night, they got up and CROPPED
about In the dark, and procured light
with much difficulty, with flint and steel,
and tinder-box, and unpleasant sulphur
matches. And went to medicine-chests,
and took calomel and blue pills aud salts
and SIENNA aud jalap and rhubarb. In
those days, the fine gentlemen tipp!ed
old Jamaica and bitters in the morning,
and lawyers took their clients to the side
board for dram; while the fine ladies
lounged on sofas, reading Byron and Moore
and Scott In those days long, leather
6re-buckets were hung in the entries, filled
with water, and when a fire broke out
every citizen was fireman. In those days
gentlemen chewed tobacco, Indifferent
where they expectorated, and ladies clean
ed their dental pearls with snuff, and
wore thin shoes, aud laced themselves in
to feminine wasps and consumption. Ba-
bies were put to sleep with spanking and
paragoric. Urchins were logged at school
a posteriori, and subjected to al! sorts of
unheard Of chastisements. Picture books
and toys were dear and poor. Big boys
played "hockey," or, as they called it down
south, "bandy," in the streets with crook
ed sticks and hard wooden balls, policemen
being unknown, and went home to their
mothers to have broken shins annointed
with opodeldoc. Street fights occurred be-
tween schools, and school masters were per-
secuted by the biggest boys. Young Ia
dies danced nothing bu: formal and decor
Gus cotillions, or fast and furious Virginia
reels, in wide entry halls, by the light of
candles that called for shutters every ten
minutes, to music by black fddlers, or
cracked and jingling panes while mothers
sat darning stockings, and fathers played
backgammon, or gambled and swigged
brandy and water, or come home late, roar
ing bacchanalian songs, and enquiring Of
their sleepy wives in which brown parcel
the milk was wrapped up. Boarding
school misses in calico gowns practiced the
Battle of Prague" or the "Caliph of
Bagdad," or Clementini's "Sonatas," on
instruments not much bigger than a mod
ern young lady's travelling trunk, strung
with jangline wires that were always snap
ping and occasionly chirpsd Tom Moore's
melodies" or such airs as " Gaily the
Troubador," or sPray, Papa, stay a little
longer" or THE banks ofthe blue Mosehe-
he-he-helle." Guests sat on hard wooden
chairs, sometimes with their feet up, over
roaring wood-fres, "spittin' round, and
maxim 'emselves sociable," with juleps,
eggnog, apples and cider. Every man
shaved, wore bell crowned hat, a swal-
lOw-taled coat with a horse collar, carried
turnip-shaped time-keeper in his waist
band, with heavy seal hanging out, had
his brooches pockets full of silver half
dollars, wore round-tced boots and linen
shirts, cased his throat with high standing
shirt collars; ate all manner Of nauseous
quack medicines, dined at one o'clock some
families eating the pudding before the
meat, took maps in the afternoons-on
Sundays prefering the pews for that pur-
pose-had nothing to say against slavery
or rum, took meagre weekly newspaper,
smoked ''long nines," ate fried oysters and
lobster salad, aud drank fiery MADEIRA or
punch at twelve o'clock at night, got his
feet vet on slushy days, took awful colds
and rheumatisms, sent for Dr. Sangrado,
and was bled, blistered and leached; had
nightmares, headaches, dyspepsia, fever,
deirium, death. and darkened rooms.