Stevens County tribune. (Morris, Minn.) 1877-1880, 1879-11-06
FORTY YEARS AGO.
The way Things Were Done In 1870 or
ThereabOuts.
from the New York Graphical


Thereabouts.
from the New York Graphic.]
"Yes," said the man who wasn't afraid
of telling his age, you young fellows
of 35 don't really know how old we of
IS are. You can't realize the changes
which have come over this land in SO
short time. Look at our railroad sys-
tenn, even that in our neighborhoods.
Forty-one years ago travelled with my
father up the whole north side of Long
island from Greenport in carriage.
The mail was three days getting to New
York. A single railroad track extend
ed from Jamaica into Brooklyn. We
crossed from Brooklyn to New York in
horse-ferryboat. They were playing
King john in the old Park TLeater.
Fanny Ellsler was the star of the bal
let, and one-horse cabs, with step and
door behind, piled on Broadway. The
Aston House was in its glory, and saw
the unfinished walls of Trinity Church.
My father took paper called the EG-
press and the Journal of Commerce,
out of which I vairly sought for some
thing to interest 4-year-old boy. I
can recollect but one sentence in either
of those papers. It read at intervals in
very big letters, Arrival of the Great
Western from Europe and it seemed
to me as if no ocean steamer, save the
Great Western, crossed the Atlantic for
years and years. Beside these head
lines, they used, on each arrival, to get
out wood-cut of the vessel. A man
who had been to Europe in those days
was somebody. Noted ministers used
to go, and they always on returning
wrote books of their travels. It would
be good plan to compile ministerial
library of travel in Europe and Asia
a man with beard and mustache then
was at once curiosity and monstrositY.
well recollect hearing one of our VII
tage magnates gravely advising young
New York doctor to shave off these ap-
pendages. They were clean shavers IN
chose days, and almost everybody
shaved themselves. The razor-case and
strop formed part of every mans tray
cling equipment. Illinois was the
farthest Western State, letter postage
was 10 cents, the K1aickeTbockeT was
the sterling magazine of the time, Sam
Sticks and Maj. Jack Downing's letters
the only very funny reading, gentlemen
wore swallow tailed coats at all hours,
tomatoes were called love apples,' and
suspected Of being poisonous, all tenn
perance people were known as Wash
lngtonians,' circuses travelled with very
small negro-minstrel bands who sung
Jump, Jim Crow fiddles made row
among the older people when intro
duced in the country church choirs,
the Methodists wouldn't tolerate cross
in evergreens on Christmas, or any
thing else, or at any other time, every
body chewed and spit, and built their
houses with Grecian porticos, photo
graphs were daguerreotypes, and would
rub off the plates, whale oil was the on
ly lighting fluid, all shirt-collars stood
up, doctors bIed and gave calomel for
almost everything, lung-fever hadn't
turned into pneumonia, everybody had
barrel of rum or hard cider in the Gel
lar, nobody had put caudal appendage
on our first parents, all schooGmasters
came from Connecticut and licked with
a cowhide, girls hadn't learned to skate,
a man worth q million was rich, the
Democrats were called 'Loco-focos,'
and so were the matches, the Presby-
terians preached down the Methodists
and Episcopalians, the country papers
| abounded in advertisements of runaway
apprentice-boys bound out to serve I'M
til of age, represented pictorially by a
young man making tracks, with his
bundle slung on stick over his
shoulder. Good butter was only a
shilling a pound, good cigars 8 cents
apiece. Rum was the favorite drink,
the best of liquor cents a glass. In
FAINT damnation, predestination, and
election were the favorite pulpit topics,
Eclipse the fastest horse in America,
Bunker hill monument big thing just
done, nobody lectured, round dances
hadn't come over, lager-beer was I'M
known, general trainings were held
yearly, the muskets had flint locks,
every householder was required by
law to keep two leather buckets in case
OF fire, ladies wore bustles, gentlemen
strapped their pantaloons under their
boots, trousers were cut with horizontal
instead of perpendicular flaps in front
and Henry Clay and Daniel Webster
were the greatest men in the United
States. tell you those were times
now"