The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-12-21

Wan Curiosity-Steam as Old Fashioned
Donkey Pcwer-The Sea, and the Sky,
and the Trees Not old Fashioned.
Copyright by American Press Association
The City of Rome is big ship, and ap-
proaches the greatest perfection reached
by steamshipwrights, but one day in the
middle of the Atlantic ocean somebody
suddenly asked:
How viii people cross a hundred
years from nowF"
The questioner was called away be-
fore had an answer ready, and lying
back in a steamer chair, with half closed
eyes, l thought about it-and not only
then, but ever since.
A hundred years from now the City of
Rome will, in the quaint sea phrase,
have ''laid her bones ether as the bottom
of the sea or in a pile Of lumber in some
dockyard, and her very naras viii have
passed to another and another craft, or
have been forgotten. Even If some pict-
ure, taken today by way Of advertising
her final touch of perfection, should es-
cape destruction and come under the
eyes Of the mariners and the vOyagers of
1890, how they VIII laugh and puzzle
over it! How they Will show it to each
other and say, Did you ever see any
thing so ridiculous" or Now what do
you suppose they did with that concernT'
OF Just fancy having to carry hun
dreds Of tons Of coal 10 make their
steamw Or perhaps the very idea of
steam power viii then be as obsolete as
donkey power is now; perhaps even cleo
tricity will be an old fashioned and
primitive power" and something we
have not yet dreamed Of will take its
place.
Look at the methods of 1890 and con-
trast them with our own, whether in
navigation and travel, or in motive pow
ers, or in the size of enterprises, and then
as all movements partake of the nature
of snowballs and get bigger and move
faster as they roll, we may double the
probable difference for the coming cent
ury. Fancy that you and /, if we could
be reproduced a hundred years from to-
day, would be received with shrieks of
laughter by our own or our friends
great-grandchildren. Our dress, our or
naments, our hairdressing, our very
speech would be only Sit for museum,
and we who pride ourselves upon riding
the very crest of the wave of progress
would find ourselves so far behind the
times that we could hardly keep our
mouths shut for establishment.
This especial thought was the one that
struck me at the dinner succeeding my
friends careless suggestion. We had
some very ''swagger' people on board,
"swagger" being just now the English
slang for what they used to call smart"
people and swells, and we have
styled stony" folks. But how very OBJ
solete, how absurd, how impossible"
the very smartest of these English peer
esses or American sovereigns would APP
pear if the City of Rome could plunge
off this great wave into the last decade
of the next century, How crude and ex-
traordinary the dinner upon which the
head steward of today so Justly prides
himselfl How clumsy the table imple-
ments and mode of using them!
a hundred years ago the most luxu-
rious diners had steel forks, sometimes
with only two prongs, and knife whose
broad blade was rounded at the end into
a sort of spatula upon which most arti
cles Of food were carried TO the mouth.
Most of us who have had grandparents
remember seeing some stray relics Of
ouch cutlery preserved ''for old times
sake and as objects of incredulous
amusement TO our childhood. At that
period, also, the most elegant ladies
poured their tea into their saucers and
80 drank it, and whereas common peo-
pie set their cups upon the cloth and so
soiled it, refined ones had what they
called cup plates, just like our butter
plates.
In those days everybody took mp the
bones of the chicken or bird and re-
moved the last morsels of meat with
their teeth They also blew upon each
spoonful of soup TO cool it. and then
drew it in with a loud noise. Remem-
Der the oldest person you knew as a
child, or your mothers stories of those
she knew, aud YOU VIII recall the tradi
ton of these habits. Wen, in a hundred
years our own and those of the aristo-
cratic company dining that day in the
saloon of the City Of Rome Will be quite
as acknowledgements we add quite as
disagreeable?
And the food! A hundred years ago a
family dinner consisted of one course
and pudding, and that first course was
great joint of meat set bodily before
you, with no attempt at Disgusting its
identity, no graceful little combinations
In the way of entrees. no pretty dishes
whose foundation is hidden IN mystery
and whose superstructure is bewilder-
ing but very nice, like the poetry so
fashionable Just now. Then the pud-
ding was some simple ana substantial
structure, such rs we find described in
the old, old cookery books. and such as
still survive in English middle class fam
lies, especially in the country, and this
was all.
Compare this dinner with such one
Is that ten-thousaud-dOllSr- cook
Is serving today, and then forecast the
dinner TO be served a hundred years
hence to some millionaire whose ances-
tors are today filling New Jersey farm
or weaving ginghams in Glasgow, and
try to estimate the difference.
And where Will that millionaire live:
VIII New York have become mere
port Of entry to Chicago, just as Liver
pool Is TO London, or win everybody cen
ter around a royal court at Washington
Or may some utterly new city have