The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-02-11
THE ENGLAND OF OUR
 FOREFATHERS.
BY ABBY SAGE RICHARDSON.

We have all heard much admiration expressed for the heroism and forti- tude of the first colonists in Massa- chusetts and Virginia, who, early in the seventeenth century, left their homes in England to settle ill the un- tried wilderness of America.
 They deserve admiration and sym pathy certainly, these men and women who forsook civilization for the rude life of colonist, and few persons have been actuated by higher motives than were some of the first settlers in this country. But it is fair to recall the fact that they left behind them no such luxuries as are common now-a- days, and many things which we now esteem the ordinary comforts of life were great luxnries in the time of our emigrant foretathers.
 First, as to dwelling houses, we hear about the architecture of the lat ter part of the sixteenth century, of Sir Walter Raleigh's fine house at Sherborne, of the Improvements of the Earl of Leicester at Wentworth, of Lord Bacon's famous suggestions about building. We hear about the handsome row of palaces on the Strand, London, which faced the banks of the Thames. We hear of the gardens of the nobility with their lawns terraces, fountains, garden alleys, and arbors hung with cages of song birds.
 Yet the interior of one of these houses would look very bare and un- furnished to-day. The benches and chairs were of wood, sometimes carved handsomely, to be sure, but generally uncushioned and comfortless; the floors were strewn with rushes in place of soft rugs and carpets. Often at the table where the noble ladies and gentlemen who were dining, who had hardly begun to use forks, and still ate with knives and fingers, threw their bones on the floor under the ta- ble among the rushes, and let their dogs nose about for them. Frequently the filth which thus accumulated be- came very offensive before the floor was swept.
 Window glass, which seems so in- dlspensable to us, was nearly all inn ported and was very costly. People were so careful of their windows in those days, that the gentry sometimes packed them away for safe keeping when they left home, as we put our furniture into brown holland for the summer.
 The houses had no gas, no water nfnoo kr r.. great chimney places and the chim- neys were often smoky. Indeed, the art of building chimneys was not very old, and up to the sixteenth century the fires had been kindled on great central hearth in the hall, with a smoke-escape in the roof. In the north of England there were many houses with no better arrangements for fires than that, as late as the reign of King James, and we can still find survivais of these primitive fire-places in the Hebrides.
 As to these places on the Thames, the palaces of Buckingham and Somer- set and Essex, they fronted river, not like the river of to-day, with clean stone embankments and shining wa ters. The banks were slimy mud at low-t tide, and the river was the place of deposit of the offal of the city. The streets, too, were filthy and full of garbage; kites and ravens were cherished to eat up the dirt, and when the odors became too offensive, they kindled bonfires to avert the plague, which was generally lurking in the alleys and corners of the city.
 These streets were unpaved, damp and dirty, even in dry weather; in wet weather almost knee-deep in mud. They were crooked and narrow too, so that the troubles of the bachelor who tried to get his wife home on a wheelbarrow need not have been wholly fable.
 In the part ot the city which was thickly built up, the streets were in 6 continual twilight from the projec- tions of the houses which rose story above story till they almost touched overhead.
 Ihave spoken only of the houses oi the rich, which were built mostly o1 stone or brick in city or country. But the great middle class of England- the yeomanry-built houses of wood wherever wood was plentiful enough to cut for house. e-building. And pre- pairing the timber was slow and pain ful labor, as there were no saw-milll in England.