Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-06-13

BosToN, May 81, 1882.
Seed time and harvest shall not fail.
But Eastern farmers who in this spring of
1882 have twice ploughed up seed potatoes
decayed in their chilly or frozen fields
don't proclaim the verify of the promise SO
cheerfully as they have been known to do,
and there are good many dismal prophe-
cies that this years crops will be like those
of the cold summer" nearly seventy
years ago, when corn was frosted in the
milk, and housewives all the succeeding
winter had much ado to get up palatable
meal out of the stunted, nipped vegetables,
the blasted rye, and the mouldy, half
grown corn the year had yielded. That
was before the days of Western wheat
fields big as county, and rapid transit
almost all over the earth. Then barrel
of -four was an acquisition not lightly to
be thought of, and bread, cakes, pastry,
made wholly of wheat, were regarded dis
tinctly as luxuries. Talking over the
feats Of
OUR GRANDMoTHERS
In those and little earlier days-their
spinning, carding, weaving, bleaching,
their house work and dairy work, all the
notable undertakings they carried on while
simultaneously busted with the bearing
and rearing of the great families of chill
dren that used to be the fashion in New
Eupland-we wonder sometimes of what
they were made, but think we too often
forget that though they didn't always sue
ceed in killing themselves off early, they're
responsible for goodly portion of the
nerves, backs, no stomachs and general
shakiness of those who came after them,
and, beside, that the work they accom-
plished then wasn't quite the hercula-
neum" affair that it would be now. They
had nothing save the securing of brasses
that answered to all our modern bric-a brac
fussinp. The food was much simpler then,
and OF serious sort, that might be
prepared in bulk, so to say-a monster
s' boiled dinner" three or four gallons of
bean porridge, bushel of doughnuts, and
hundred or so mince pies baked in one day
for two or three months consumption. A
best gown and best bonnet then could be
worn a dozen years, and be for all that
time high fashion, and the children seem
mostly to have minded themselves and
each other so soon as they could toddle.
A recent magazine has delightful article
on the rural poor of the dying generation
in England under the caption, The Ar
cady of Our Grandfathers. Borrowing that
title, think we may say that life in the
Already of cur grandmothers, however hard
and bare it looks to us, had undoubtedly
its mitigations, and we could not dare be
sure that many of those grandmothers
would change periods with the housewives
of to-day. Wouldn't they
FLoUT OUR STORE CLOTHES,
Our houses, "replete," as the auctioneer
says, "with every modern convenience,
and all the culture and grace with which
we strive to adsrn our lives, if they must
take with them our high.pressure atmos-
phere, onr new aspirations and ideals, our
long list of new.fangled struggles after
perfect service, fresh air in place of sewer
gas. milk and butter like Caesar's wife,
cane sugar instead of glucose, honey that
has traditions of bees-all our latter.day
worries? I'm afraid these self-dependent
phantom ladies would even extend their
scorn of our degenerate ways to the hope
fulness with which we talk of cooperation
as the Moses to lead us through our Red ]
Sea of troubles. But the "proof of the
pudding" ETC.; and the thirteenth apart
ment-house, built by stockholders who are
also tenants, has lately been started in
New York. Here apartment-houses have
been built as excellent financial invest
ments, and the rents for suits of rooms
have been much too extravagant for the
greater number of people who would en-
ioy the relief and luxury of life in a fam.
lily hotel. This last New York
APARTMENT HOUSE
Is to be ten stories high, and entirely fire.
proof Instead of being arranged in flats,
each suit of family rooms will be two
stories high, have its independent halls
and stairways, the first floor consisting Of
kitchen, dining-roorl, parlor and library,
the second of bedrooms and bathrooms.
The stockholders take twenty suits OF
rooms for their own use, and six suits will
be let to outsiders, the income from these
rented suites to 60 toward the running ex
penses of the house and the taxes. Two
similar houses are proposed at other points
in the city.
Vennor promises us but little occasion this
summer for shady hats and gossamer gar
ments, but if we do have any need for
breezy paraphernalia we shall come to it
without interregnum between that and
winter clothing. And the watering.pla
season, save for cottages, promises to be a
brief one. Landlords this year will have
space for thorough. going preparations, and
may be twice over ready for guests. New.
port is only another luxuriant city by the
sea, with the exceptionally mild climate
that extends to Martha's Vineyard, but as
for the Isles of Shoals, Rye Beach, Mt.
Desert, or even Nantucket and our nearby
long. shore places, up to this last day Of
May one shudders at their very mention.
Women who are accused of not fre-
quently getting qmd pro quo for the
money spent in their summer outings, find
a malignant enjoyment in some statistics
recently published by gentleman Of Cam
bridge. He gives table Of the tangible
outgo' and income of sixty.fve hunting
tours in the Maine woods. The number of
sportsmen. amounted to 1856, guides l0l,
days out l,Oll, the sum paid guides lat
50 rs the day) S5, 22S so, the total expense
sI3,4O3 29. Total visible result Seven
moose, four caribou, and four deer. No
comments, but, like the exemplary Poll
parrot, " a terrible thinking"
THE LoSGFELLow MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION,
Which has for its objects the raising of
money for the purchase of grounds between
Longfellow's house and the Charles river,
the erection there Of a monument to the
poet, the keel ing of the grounds forever
open to the people, and also to provide for
the permanent preservation of the historic
house should it ever pass out Of the pos
session of the poets descendants, is duly
officered, and issued its circular Of appeal
some days since. The President of the
Association is James Russell Lowell, and.
Holmes, Whittier and Howells are among
the Vice. Presidents. A national subscrip.
tion is desired, and Californian readers and
lovers of Longfellow who have dollars to
spare may forward each one dollar to John
Bartlett, Treasurer, Postoffics box 1890,
Boston, Mass.
The London Spectator in an article on
Emerson concludes that Emerson was infe.
rior to Carlyle in genius, but may compare
favorably with him as a man. 1t quotes
Mr.. Ruskin as asking. "What can you say
of Carlyle, except that he was born IL the
clouds, and struck by lightning?" and al.
lows that though possibly Emerson, too,
was
BORN IN THE CLOUDS,
He certainly was not marred or scathed by
lightning. 1t repeats, also, that old de.
scription, by lady, of one of Emerson's
youthful sermons Waldo Emerson
came last Sunday and preached sermon,
with his chin in the air, in scorn of the
u Il A