Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-01-01
HOW THE YEAR CAME In.
New Year-GOOd Resolves and Valiant
Resolutiona-In General.


New Year-GOod Resolves and Valiant
ResoIurIons-In General.
Old Father Time staid up late last night
and held quiet little watch-night meeting
all by himself Some scattering entries he
made on the pages of big tome marked
1882" Big Sam commenced to work con-
vulsively and the whole outside world
gathered itself with expanded lungs to cele-
brate the death of one cycle of time and the
birth of another, in the same breath, much
as the peasants of France used to shout lie
roi est mort: Vive lie roi. +"
Father Time arose and watched the hands
of his clock climbing slowly toward the
IL mark. All. The hands met and formed one
line, The metallic clane reverberated in
the still night air, and before the echoes had
got around from their wild career across the
river and along the hilltop, Father Time
slammed his book of 1889 last shut and
turned to that of 1890 with its virgin page
awaiting the inscription of events, trivial
and important, good and bad, noble and in
significant.
The world that was awake shook hands or
shouted or allowed the emotions of the mo-
ment to predominant. Good resolutions
few thicker than the leaves of Vallambrosa.
All of the SO saloons which by the unkind
exactions of the Brooks law were obliged to
close at the exact expiration of 1889, were
under no hardship at all, for the jewellers
who leaned against the bars were mostly
those who were taking their last drink in
the old year, and protesting that there
would be no drinking in the new year.
And so the new year was ushered in.
Promises unsubstantial as quicksand,
promises fragile as sevres china or political
deals; resolves;made to be broken or made to
be kept; excuses to be checked; expendi-
lures set down as the last of their
kind; new leaves turned over, or
pages in life turned down forever; dreams
of afluence that the new year is to be
freighted with; vicissitudes to those who
have profted by the old year. and to whom
the new may not be so generous; a strange
motley and tumble of impulses, regrets,
hopes, aspirations and expectations. When
the new year runs its race, what of all these
will materia lize, be realized or fail in full
illment? The cynic may point to the
''kismet'' of the Arabians and say that
what's to be will be, and perhaps the cynic's
right.
There were many balls last night. The
dancers few, spun and crossed. The big
bell struck. Pretty little feet stopped.
sit is $780," everybody said: Let us
dance" Away go the feetl How they fyl
There were watch meetings last night,
watching the metal hands on the clock pass
the hour of II. There have been watch
meetings before. They sat in the tall, old
pews last night and thought of the days
gone by. Eyes that could not see the clock;
eyes that looked far away into the past,
thinking of days gone, old faces faded,
hoping for bright days coming anon. And
a. -, - l~o1l
resonant, quavering and then dying away to
silence; interrupting the trains OF thought
upon which hundreds we're riding to dream
land. There was collision with g fact.
One year gone, another arrived.
How easy is the fight of timei How
tempus do fugit, as the member from way
back once said.
One of the happenings of the day will be
a reception by the employees of the Pennsyl-
vania Company, at their rooms, No. 125
Sedgwick street, Allegheny. The lads will
be glad to shake hands with the boys from
every road coming into Pittsburg. The hours
are from 8 to 6 P. NJ. If any unfortunate
railroad man is away from home to-day and
chances to be In Allegheny he is the man
the boys are looking tor. "Good cheer" is
his greeting.
The churches watched the new year come
last nlgDt. Inc metnOOlsL cnurcneS espe.
cially kept their doors open. The year came
like every other year, quietly, unseen.
Watch meetings were held at the Smithfield
Street, Butler Street, Christ, Wylie Avenue
and other churches.
Nine out of ten people believe that new
decade begins this morning. They make a
heavy resolve with a big R on that ac-
count. The resolve may be postponed for
365 days. The decade does not begin until
January /, 1891. This year is one of the
old, crab-aPple family, and must be nailed
up to view as such, in spite of all protests.
The day of New Year calls has passed. It
was not because of thechange in the weather.
Sergeant Stewart has promised the most
emphatic LIST of January Thermometer. The
ladies have grown weary, and the better
sense of all the people has decided that New
Year calls are not in good form.