The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1882-01-01
ANOTHER YEAR.

measurably behind and the other opening
infinitely before us. II we pause at any
/ station in the succession of events what
records are chronicled upon the page OF the
Past and what dimly-seen figures dance
upon the curtain of the Future2 The one
almost invariably occasions regret and the
other, too often excites alarm. II we par
eel these inconceivable infnitieS into COM
prehensible periods and look merely
AT an era, or century, or decade,
or year, the establishment we expert
ence at the transactions and histories or
drama or comedies placed upon the worlds
stage is not decreased, and each individual
piece or parcel differs from the other as the
myriad human lives and faces or the num-
berless leaves do And now on this New
Years morning the brief record made upon
our little planet since We welcomed the
dawn of 1881, is one of original features,
though the retrospect be brief And if 1.-THE
fierce spirit with the glass and scythe" be
but kind to us on the next recurring Jan
uarys advent we will all have seen
something and learned something
VIC had not thought of or dreamed
of before. We do not fancy sen.
timcutalism greatly, but after the much
that has been said in like teLor, it is now
and will be always true that there are many
things in each year that leaves us to give us
cause for sadness and regret The trials we
have endured, the poverty we have fought
p 'rhaps, the disappointments we have
met, the friends We have lost, the dead sea
apples even that have turned TO ashes in
tle graSpins after they had looked so ms
cious and the crime and catastrophe we
have been compelled to witness almost ere
ate TO the sensitive mind feeling of pro-
fund desl ar, although we know it is but
the life one little year. Yet the cloud
turns again to rs its silver lining, when
Hope challenges our attention to the year
that is just coming in. 1t is impossible for
the mind to refrain from believing that the
debit side of our accounts in the experience
behind us will be more than cancelled by the
kindness of the future and the vista seems
filled with flowers and toll seems to promise
wealth and honors. 1t. was benefcent in
Nature to link us TO so cheering aud re-
assuring handmaiden as Hope, that the
rough points of reflection might be chiselled
into smoothness, and the man kept work
ing out his task. The New Year is a reflex
oflite simply, in that it always presents ac-
conplished facts impossible to recall,
whether good or bad, and a
possible improvement and greater
growth in time to come. We
have said that the years all differ from
each other, and in some respect. 1881 has
been more marked than any preceding.
Since the invention of printing the types
have never been weighted with such a
varied mass of records of curious events.
1t would be too tedious, and it would be
indeed superuous to particularize the in.
cidenis Transporting within the past twelve
months. They are still fresh in the memory
Of the reading public, and some will remain
inctlaceab'e None of the nations have
escaped trouble, and the world collect.
iynly, has not Jailed in its annual
allotment of sorrow. Great men have
fallen off, rulers have dropped under the
hands of assassins, over 500 100000 of prop
erty have been destroyed by fire, floods and
drouth have prevailed to an extraordinary
extent and crime has run riot. Isms and
ehisms where least expected have arisen
and few years when all is known will
be found filed with so many horrors, so
much disaster aud so many private and
public calamties. And yet in all thi,
chapter of darkness and evil one fact re-.
mains upon which the hope of the seasons
now coming may be safely based, and that
is that we know what has happened So
infinitely and so well. The ANNALS in.
crease regularly in volume because civili1a.
lion keeps opening mp new fields for the
gathering and transmission of news. We
thus often fear that we are going backward in
morals and charity, when it is simply elec-
tricty and the press presenting panoram.
of sections and people previously unknown.
In short, intelligence has increased our
know ledge Of events, rather than that the
events have themselves grown worse in
character or more frequent in occurrence.
Of course, as population increases there
viii be some growth in events, but the en-.
couraging feature continues that crimes and
vice and accidents are recorded while the
good and virtuous, and even annals OF
mankind do not elicit passing notice.
This is an indisputable evidence that the
former are still the exceptions to the
rule. As long as this is true we need never
feel otherwise than encouraged. And now
after all that has been disastrous, and ap-
parently retrogressive, and bloody, and
uncharitable, we must yet recognise the
fact that the world has gone unusually
further on in 1851 than in previous years
To-day there are better hcilitie,
for the transportation of th,
commodities of commerce, II wider dissem.
nation Of ideas, u broader intelligence. 4.
greater number Of charities, stronger
unity of feeling in the earth's nationalties,
and grandcr facilities for multiplying these
elements and blessings upon which mans
perfection depends, than ever ex.
listed before in the history OF
humanity Tho study and imnrovar,a,,