, 1890-12-28


and tho Trees Not Old Fashioned.
Copyright by AnericAn Press Association
The City of Rome is a big ship, and ap-
proaches the greatest perfection reached
by ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, but one day in the
middle of the Atlantic ocean somebody
suddenly asked:
"How viii people cross a hundred
years from now"
The ~quesnoner was called away be
lore had an answer ready, and lying
lack in n steamer chair, with half closed
eyes, | thought about it-and not only
then. hut ever since.
A hundred years from now the City of
Rome will. in the quaint sea phrase.
hAve laid her bones either at the bottom
Il the sea or in a pile Of lumber in some
.,ockyari. and her very name will have
passed. to another and another craft, or
lave been forgotten. Even if some pict-
Jtre. taken today by way of advertising
her final touch Of perfection, should es-
rape 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 1t to each
nther and say. did you ever see any
thing so ndiculousyr or Now what do
you suppose they did with that concern
ur "Just fancy having TO carry hun
dreds of tons of coal to make their
steamTr Or perhaps the very idea OF
steam power will then be as obsolete as
donkey power is now perhaps even cleo
tricity will be an old fashioned and
primitive power" and something we
- - T..w,.I - iii ~aNA "a.
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
rs 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 hRirdressing, our very
speech would be only fit for a 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 Inc 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 tony folks. But how very OBJ
~solete, how absurd. how impossible"
the very smArtest Of these English peer
esses or American soyereigns would ap-
pear IL the City Of Rome could plunge
of 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 80 justly prides
himself How clumsy the table imple-
and mode of using themi
A hundred years ago the most luxu-
rious diners had steel forks, sometimes
with only two prongs, and a knife whose
broad blade was rounded at the end into
n sort of spatulA upon which most arti-
Giles Of food were carried to the mouth.
Most Of us who have had grandparents
seeing some stray relics OF
such cutlery preserved ''for old timesi
and as objects OF increl5jous
amnseinent to our childhood(At That
nsgiod. also. the most elegant ladies'
poured their tea ig..o their saucers and
so drank it, and whereas common peo-
pie set their cups upon the cloth and so
it, refined ones had what they
called cup plates, just like our butter
In those days everybody took up 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 1t, 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, and you will recall the tradi-
lion of these habits. Well, in a hundred
years our own and those of the Rristo-
cratic company dining that day in the
Of the City of Rome will be quite
as Acknowledgements we add quite as
And the food! A hundred years ago a
family dinner consisted of one course
and a pudding. and that first course was
a 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
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 and substantial
structure, such as 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 Shis dinner with such a one
that Observation-Disclosures cook
is serving today, and then forecast the
dinner 10 be served a hundred years
hence to some millionaire whose ances-
tors are today tilling a New Jersey farm
or weaving ginghams in Glasgow, and
try to estimate the difference.
And where will that millionaire liver
VIII New York have become a mere
port Of entry to Chicago, just as Liver
pool is TO London, or will everybody CEN
ter around a royal court at Washington;
Or may some utterly new city have
sprung up and, like Jonah's gourd. have
attained its maturity in a night2 Who
can tellY But if our present metropolis
should by some marvel hold its own,
how utterly different that ''own" will be!
Read what the a~ntiquaries say Of the
New York Of 1890: recall the stories that
were afioat at the time Of the inRugn-