Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1888-05-05
The Year 1900,

The Wear 1900.
Few realize that in less than twelve years
we shall have entered upon new century.
Happy indeed has been the lot of man who
has lived in the closing years OF the nine
teenth century. he has witnessed the
grandest achievements in science, if not in
art and literature, that the world has ever
known. He has seen nation Of free peo-
Pile celebrate the first centennial of great
republic. He has seen the development and
application OF electricity almost to magical
uses. He has seen an uplifting OF mankind
10 every sphere of life. Superstition has
faded away as science has advanced. Reli.
gon has spread its white wings over the
earth and sea, and the spirit of militancy
mas given away everywhere before the pacific
tendencies of modern society. What would
have been deemed impossible fifty years ago
is to day commonplace and almost neces-
sity. The telegraph and telephone, the
electric light, the various applications of
light and heat are specimens of the devel
opment OF science to the utiitarian and use.
full. 1t has been we'll said that our era
marks one of the great epochs of humanity,
1t has been fateful Gfty years. If not pre-
eminent in art it has been in science if not
in cong in philanthropy if not in philosophy
in physics. Men of science who live to day
have almost created new world. To go
back fifty years is TO go back to the slow
processes of thought aud labor, that in
this rushing time seem incomparably
tedious and slow. The last half
century has witnessed the greatest of Amer
can inventions-the mower and reaper, the
rotary printing press, the sewing machine,
the Indis rubber industry, the'horse.shoe
machine, the sand blast for carving, the
grain elevator, the gauge lathe, the tele
phone, the electric magnet. Strip the world
of these to day and how greatly progress
would be retarded No nation that ever
lived that has been so conservative of physi-
cal forces or done so much for mankind as
the people of the United States during the
brief existence of the new republic. AS an
ofishoot Of the only race that never has been
destructive, the Anglo Saxon, the American
people have solved the question of self gov
ernment and justified the apotbegm of Sid
ney Smith, that humanity ia q modern in
vention." Nothing illustrates more forcibly
the benevolent spirit of the era than the diff
ference in the scale of wages paid to-day
and a century ago. In 1900 common labor.
ers living in the rudest sheds, as MacMaster,
the historian, tells us, were paid from So to
Sc month working from sunrise to sunset.
In the city of Albany wages were 40 cents
day and men we're glad to find employment.
Yet in those times clothing was much high
er than it is to-day and days wages bought
only two yards of calico. One hundred
years ago a good farm band brought So
month and strong boy was glad to get 81 a
month to work at the hardest manual
employment on the farm or in the shop.
Butter was from s TO 10 cts pound; potatoes
and turnips sold for shilling a bushel.
Women went out to work for 25 cents
month and their board. a girl who could
earn II cents at the spinning wheel by
days hard work thought she was doing
we'll The poor suffered and there was
more want and wretchedness proportionate
to the population than there is in the Uni
ted States to-day. To day the commonest
laborer has his day shortened to from eight
to ten hours with his regular halfholiday,
and is not satisfied with anything less than
ten or twelve shilings for his work. It is
not to be wondered at that in the oiden
times men lived slowly, thought the stage
coach was fast enough, and that two days
was quick time for journey from New
York to Philadelphia and four days from
New York to Boston, journey now made
in little more than four hours; the public
libraries were unknown and the annual al
manac took the place of the daily newspa'
per. We live in different world from that
of our fathers. No other race has ever
known its like. 1t has witnessed transfer
nations surprising the greatest of miracles.
It has seen cities spring up on the prairies
and become magnificent centres of business
and population in less than a score
of years. 1t has seen one of the greatest
cities of the world the rival of the Oldest
aud grandest centers of foreign wealth, rise
in its might at the ocean gateway of the
Empire State. What will the twentieth
century see? Will its restless people be
satisfied with present means of communlca-
ton and of intercourse? Will electricity,
with its marvellous development, continue to
unfold its weird resources and afford the vi.
tai energy that shall Danish time and dis.
tance almost together? Will nations learn
to leave the arts of war to the past and sub
NIT to the arbitrament of peace? Will the
cry of human liberty ring around the world
without once reaching the ear OF the slave?
Will the divine dispensation be sufficient to
bring unity to the Christian churches? Will
poverty be banished, ignorance and super.
stition give way to the march o. civilization
and Christianity, and will the millennium
dawn? Whatever may be the future, mans
nosition to day is truly one of unparalleled
grandeur. The night that ushers in the new
wear of 1900 will witness the most magniti-
cent celebration OF modern times. The
whole world will unite in welcoming the
new wear and the birth of the twentieth CEN
tury. May all our readers be spared to
witness the scene and participate in its un'
pictured and unwritten glories.-Al6any
EUening Journal.