Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-11-03
Forty Years Ago.

The trunk Of the period was covered
-;th sealskin, the bristly hair outward
w VIII studded with small brass nails
S sTs baggage-smasher had barely been
luz anoloped. Valises were lone and
u uw Saddle-bags were not ont If
o' civ hotels called the guests to meals
*, the gong or dinner-bell. The land.
,p.rd sat at the head of the table and
nloryed the breakfast steak. The quests
I;ned together all at the same hour
INNER was served with great para j..
and formality. The walters reno. ~, %g
the cove,s from the chatting dishe : . W !
;tiven signal, bore them aloft ou..e Of fl tb q
Toom then rcappeared again an d carried
1.-THE dishes to be carved at s,tde-tah]esa
The splcndors of the Aston House were
'lmos. r%everentially talke, of in countrv
homes. Hordes of ragged girls and
hoys infested the hotel corridors OFFERING
t%oothpicks for sale. Without Older
iovs bcset the c%ountryman, whiskine
under his nose copies of dubious books
filed with colored prints. They carried
their stock, wrapped in brown paper.
by the basketful.
The oyster saloon of that time was
furnished with t'stalls" and curtained
r%ecesses, affording parties more seclu-
sion and quiet than those of to-day. It
hung without a c~loth-covered balloon
shaped sign, painted red, inside of which
acandle was stuck at night.
The bar of the period was more diney
than that of the present, but the LIQUOR
was better. Brandy then was not
obsolete. In the city drinks were three
cents ''before the SCREEN" and six cents
behind it. Six cent drinks were deemed
extravaganza, and SO were three-cent
cigars. Among old and prosperous
families could be found more cut-glass
decanters and port or Madeira either
in the closet or on the side-board than
to-day. Hundreds of the smaller ag-
ricultural villages forty years ago
maintained one or two '.taverns'' where
now there are none. Tipping intem-
perance among our native population
was far more general.
The "solid men, of the town belonged
to engine companies, and pumped faith
fully at fires. A village fire often
terminated in a subdued and respecta-
bic drunk. Exhaustion justified unusual
recourse to stimulants at unaccustomed
hours, and the rest followed. The
engine was always under repair after a
fire, and always broke down at one.
Householders were required by law to
keep leathern buckets, to be used at
fires. They hung in the hallway, and
had the owners name painted on them
in white letters.
The Temperance cause" had Just
commenced. Its adherents were termed
'Washingtonians." Washington gave
his name to a good many things, good,
bad, and mathematician the village
tavern to the latest born, tow-headed,
snub-nosed urchin.
The liberty-pole of the period was
surmounted by the Phrygian cap of lib
erty.
Boys were a%pprenticed or .'bound'' to
trades at fifteen. or sixteen and served
out their time till twenty-one. Runa-
way apprentices were advertised in the
papers, and all persons '.forbidden to
trust or harbor them"
A church organ was a grand affair,
and quite unknown in country churches.
Musical instruments of any description
found their way with difficulty into the
choirs of certain denominations. A
bass-viol wa only tolerated in our Pres
byterian Church. When old "Truman
Smith heard the first cat-gut scraped in
the Methodist Church he stalked, SOL
emn and indignant, down the aisle in
his long black cloak, and was never seen
there again"
A steamboat was a curiosity in many
OF the small ports and harbors. Crowds
focked to see one arrived from New
York, and the first rush of steam from
the escape-pipe sent every small boy
scampering in fright up the wharf, and
the grown people quaked a little inter-
nally.
Thousands had never seen a railroad
Of train of cars, and neve were to see
them. Villagers living one hundred
miles from New York could only reach
the city by stage, the trip occupying
from two to three days.
The letter postage to Illinois has been
thirty and forty cents, and ten cents did
not carry a letter much over one hum
dred miles.
P~hotographing, just then entered on
its career, was termed 'daguerreotyp-
ing" The Impressions were not fixed
on the metal plates, and people wishing
to remove a speck from the picture
would sometimes remove the glass and
brush the head, to their dismay.
Justices of the Peace were termed
''Squires,'' and the appellation always
remained with them.
Every family owned its warming-pan.
These, on cold nights, previous to retiring,
We're filled with live Goals and passed up
and down the bed between the sheets to
give it a more endurable temperature.
So obsolete has the warming-p pan be-
come that recently a lady from the city
at an old-fashioned farm house desired
to buy one to add to her parlor orna-
ments.
The family bed of 1912 was double
the present height, and the bed usually
sustained by a support of rope, or, as it
was termed, corded" Heated bed
rooms were not common, and retiring
on winter nights was a martyrdom for
man.
The family rags were saved, thrown
into the rag bag, then cut into narrow
strips, these rolled into big balls, at