Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-08-09
pRoassss AND HAPPINESS.

The opportunities and advantages OF the
age are SO immense, the inventions 80 pro.
digious, the convenience so universal and
supreme, that the observer constantly looks
to see If there is a corresponding advance
In human welfare. The Arabian stories
are outdone. Ali Bahia and Aladdin arc
familiar heroes We own all the amulets.
we have mastered all the magic. But
there are those who reflect, as they read
those wonderful tales, that while it was
pleasant for Fortunatus TO have his purse,
ana rapsurons for the prince to awake the
Sleeping beauty, there was apparently the
same old sorrow and suffering en- every
SIDE. All the magic ended in individual
gam, and although fairy power haunted
bagdad, Bagdad was not fairy land.
We know charming and venerable lady
who used to go to Albany in sloop, and
she has sometimes been week on the way.
We leave New York at half-past ten and
dine in the capital at two. Another
old friend made her bridal tour to Niagara
SIXTY years ago. But her granddaughter
can make theirs to the Staubbach and
Term In a shorter time. We know of the
riot In Alexandria before it is suppressed.
Longfellow dies, Darwin, Emerson, Carl
oaidI, and Oregon and Naples know it SIM
ultaneously. Fifty years ago, if early
winter nightfall overlook Congress in ses-
sion, man toiled long and laboriously to
make darkness visible with oil and candles
now one touch floods the great hall with
day. 1t is symbol of the sudden flooding
OF the whole world with the news of the
moment. From his office, his shop, his
home, man with his telephone talks
with his friend, his lawyer, his grocer,
his doctor, miles away. No fancied con-
yenience IN his daily employment occurs to
him that Is not already fact an6 waiting for
him to buy. HIS newspaper, a library for
hve cents, IS but a type of all. It is the
age of miracle.
Is it also the age of greater happiness:
Is the blessing universal? Does the mag
nihcent and marvellous genius of invention
bind men closer together? We put the
glrdle round the earth in forty minutes.
Is the swift journey one of general bless.
ing! Walking along the street of palaces
that leads to the beautiful METROPOLITAN
pleasure ground, marking the elaborate
Workmanship, the costly splendor of detail,
catching glimpses OF rooms rich with the
spoils of every zone, bright with exquisite
decoration, seeing the siiken and laced and
jeweled figures that step from stately car.
giles on . sunbeam, do we feel that it is the
purse of Fortunatus, good for himself and
his family alone, or that all this spiendor
is but the flower Of general pros
perity, universal content? It is
a momentous question, which sentiment,
not political economy, must answer. Seuti.
ment rules the world. 1t is the sense Of
injustice, not demonstration of supply
and demand, that upheaves society. The
golden age was not that in which inventive
genius wrought miracles, and when the
Alps, region Of dazzling icy nights and
cold dark valleys, was the symbol of human
society. 1t was prosperous, but it was
of mutual good will, of friendly
interest, of general cooperation. 1t was
dream OF psgans But it was Christian
world in which they bore one another's
burdens. Telegraphs and electric lights
and cheap periodicals alone will not restore
it. Blu. the same spirit, and only the same
spirit will win Ass,@a back again. Har-
per's Magazine