The Lamoille news. (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1877-1881, 1877-05-02
OUR LITTLE FOLKS.
How ouR ANCESTORS LIVED.

II become n AOil hINo''Atg' f
Young reader, in the nineteenth CEN
tury, have little idea how your ances-
tors lived only three or four hundred
years ago, without even an inkling of
the '.modernimprovements' that make
our homes so CHEEKY and comfortable.
Let me tell you of some Ofthe changes
the last few centuries have wrought for
us. Did you know that less than four
hundred years ago even rich people in
England lived in small, inconvenient
cots, many of them in "mud huts,"
built in what has been expressively |
termed the "wattle and dab style"
without glass windows, carpets, or even
beds, without china or glass ware for
the table, andvery few of the good things
to eat and drink that we so richly en-
Joy? The royal bed of the Third Hen
nv, who died in 1872, consisted Of mere
ly "a litter of loose PUSHES and heather,
without sheets, pillows, or Counterpart
and it was not until the close of the
fifteenth century that straw was dis
carded from the sleeping apartments
of the monarchs of England. 1t was
still later before carpets came into use
to take the place of the fresh bulrushes
with which the dining and sitting rooms
were strewed every morning. Chin
neys were unknown in England before
the thirteenth century; and previous
to that period the logs were kindled on
stone, in the center of the main apart
ments, and the smoke allowed to pass
out through a hole in the roof. Goals
for fuel were first introduced in 1907 ;
and the streets of London were paved
and lighted for the first time as late as
1896. The manufacture of glass was
introduced into Englandin 1857, plates
of horn being used for window-panes
until then. In lieu of glass and china
for the table, wooden bowls and plat
tiers, and a sort of rough, unglazed
crockery about as elegant as roofing
tiles, were all our English ancestors
had to eat from until the art of glazing
crockery was discovered by Palsy,
about the middle of the sixteenth CEN
fury. 1t was a half q century later
that forks first found their way to the
tables of even the most refined society
of Great Britain, their use having been
borrowed from Venice, about the year
1908. An old writer describes this
simple implement as can instrument
to hold meat, provided for each person
at dinner, it being considered by the
refined Nenetians as ill-mannered to
touch the viands with the fingers. Eng
land had her first carriage iii 1866, hel
first hacllney-coach in 1859, her first
mail-coach for conveying letters in
1884, and her first watch in 1858,
Yeast for bread was not used till 1884
and previous to the reign Of James
the ordinary bread Of the country was
a coarse, unleavened, black mass O
barley meal, such as would scarcely be
tolerated by even the poorest in om
, day.
The march of improvement has beer
; just as rapid in regard to dress. Yer
table historians tell us that the Thir(
Henry was "the first English king wht
ever wore Shirt" leathern doublet
I supplying the place and even the vo
luptuous Henry VIII knew nothing o
the luxury ofredl stockings, the art o
weaving them being first found out b,
a clergyman Of Cambridge as late a
1890. Before that time cloth hose wer
> worn. They were, l suppose, not un
u like the Chinese stockings of our owl
Il day; that is, ill-shapen bags for tn
: feet, composed of unbleached shifting
} AS there is no elasticity to the muslin
> the 'bags" must Of necessity be mad
Z double the size Of an ordinary stocking
Il so as to be pulled on and offwith read
t mess. Calico, now so common an,
q cheap, was not known in Europe unit
as late as the year 1851. Its name
derived from Calicot, city in India
IS from which it was first brought to Eng
. land.
a In 1417 paper was first made fror
+ rags and in 1474 the priceless inven
n ton of printing was brought into Eng
IS land by Caxton, a mercer, who set u
y his presses, by permission, in West
6 minister Abbey. Lithography, an al
) of such vast Importance in the publish
IS ing business, was invented by Some
o fielder, of Munich, and first brought t
G England by George Scharf during tn
1t early part Of the present century.
, Gas was first used in London as lat
e as 1916. The inventor was French
s man IN anoinaar of roads and hridrae