Litchfield enquirer., 1881-04-14
oLD-FAsHIONED MASSACHUSETTS,

This is an expensive age. Our richest men
 began with mere nothing but their brains and
 hands, and with little education. Chester w.
 ChapiE, one of the richest men in Massachu
 sets. when he was twenty one years old let
 himself out to work twelve or fourteen hours
 day for $12 month, farming and teaming
 from the armory to the boats on the Connect cut River; but he laid his money up. Now,
 you would insult young stripling of eighteen years to offer him such wages. He was the
 tax collector in 1929 for the town of Spring field. His fees were $80 for collecting $8, 900 the whole taxes for that town. He pays more taxes now than the whole town did then. It cost more time and travel to collect them then than now. The people were so scatter-e ing and they were so afraid of a tax collector, he said, some would run and hide up stairsor down cellar when they saw him coming, and in some instances he hunted them up in their hiding places after their family said they ''wa'n't there!" After finding the delinquent he would get part of the tax money and go again for the rest or pay it himself. He has paid Tn this way hundreds of dollars finding it easier to earn the money than to collect it.. Money was scarce and worth something then 1 recoIlect in 1895 or '26, incur town meet ing, the proposition was to raise for the com- ing year $14, 900 for the town of Springfield, Oliver B. Morris arose and objected by say ing: ''What are we coming to? It is aston ishing that pride and ambition, or fashion should demand such tax" But they over ruled the old man, and he lived to sec pride fashion and ambition rise much higher. A great change surely.
 The fashion of those days recollect. When my mother was going to get new dress. or gown, as it was called then, the woman that was engaged to come to the house to cut and olro # t<,1l has, oho toll and tor oh must get six Yards for It. Five yards was a common pattern, and 50 cents for cutting and making and dinner found. What change from that day to this! The cloth cost $1 and the making 50 cents, and the dress was worn to meeting. The fashion and pay of the preachers has changed. The first Methodist preacher in our town got $100 for one years salary, and if he had a present of pair of socks he must report it. The second preacher had wife, and got $150. The third preacher had wife and three children, and $35 was added for each child. Bishop Hedding in our time got less than $75 year. Also Priest Clough and Lorenzo Dow less than either. Our old Methodist preachers worked for a liv ing and for God, inStead of for reputation and 8 salary.
 was thinking about the fashions in domes- tic affairs, say music. ffty-6ve years ago. Governor Trask and met at Monson for Thanksgiving. with the family where he got his wife.-at old Uncle Saul Squires's, uncle to us both. Their house music was, for treble. the flax spinning wheel, played or run by one of the girls: for the tenor, the large spinning wheel. played by another girl; for bass the old lady whacking away at the loom, all work ing to make their music profitable and heal thy. The fashion of those days was to have a good. healthy family of from eight to ten nhi all rly f0r Eriv hot a change Instead oea good, healthy family now, all up in the morning early to work, we see from one to three little pimping children with sickly mother, not able 10 take care of two as easily as our mothers would ten. fifty
 years ago, without hired girl. The chil
 dren now must be in fashion, lie in bed un til or 9 in the morning, no appetite. little vitality. They play on some kind of instr,i ment, and go to school to be crowded with more kinds of lessons than our old school teachers ever knew But this is the fashion and pretended improvement of the age. Per haps this generation does not look at these things as do. but think that health, economy and morality are not improved by getting high wages or fashionable education. This generation will spend what it's fathers have earned. Generally it is watching the pulse of the man who has property, longinl for the time to come when it will come in possession of what it has not earned. 1t is a known fact that the rising generation are spendthrifts.
 Another change is in the mode of travel ling. Fifty years ago had to go through the country by stages. at the fast speed of seven miles an hour. This was much faster than the common farmers travelled It was con sidered great treat to take the stage at old Jeremy Warriner's tavern. start o'clock in the morning and get to Boston at in the evening, if the going was good. When the fare was reduced to $5 two of us worked two weeks to get money enough to pay our fare to Boston, eighty eight miles. The young men in these days earn enough in one day to pay their fare and go in three hours instead of seventeen. Our conductors get for driving their team through to Boston $3 or $4, and the old stage-drivers got $12au month. This was Chester W. Chapin's standard price in those days. Connecticut River steamboats. started by Blanchard, ffty-ti years ago, cut down the fare to Hartford to $l, which en- abled us all to go to Hartford and back in one day for $2 and stay four hours ir Hartford. This was another great treat for $2, costing us five days work. Now young men can earn enough in half day, and go and back in the other half.