The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-01-07
THE SHADOWGRAPHER.

What is more delightful after all than an
hour with a time-worn, yellow leaved,
leather bound and badly printed book aged
q hundred or more years, providing always
that it contains something of interest. The
smell of age, the queer old types, the moth
eaten leaves give a flavor like years to
madeira or port.
We found a charming old history con-
te"mporaneous with past times in the pos
session of Colonel Wheeler at the Histori-
cal library. and it is doubtful if anything
ever printed would carry more fascination
to the booEworm. 1t is a series of old
almanacs dating from 1881 to 1894, printed
in Philadelphia. Wilmington and Trenton.
They were carefully sewed together by the
good Pennsylvania housewife more than a
hundred years ago and are we'll preserved.
The gift, a valuable one by the way, is
from Major Robert c. Walker. The al
manacs came down from his ancestors and
were heirlooms. Different compilers and
publishers contributed to the works. The
first. for instance, is Poor Richard I'm
proyed;'' being an Almanack and Ephemeris
of the motions of Sun inc Moon; the true
Places and Aspects of the Planets; the Ris-
ing, Setting and Southing of the Moon
for the Year of our Lord I'LL, being
the Third after Leap-Year, containing also
The Lunations. Conjunctions, Eclipses.
Judgment of the Weather, Rising and Set
ting of the Planets. Length of Days and
Nights, Fairs, Courts, Roads, Together
with useful Tables, Chronological Observa-
tions and entertaining remarks. Other al
MANAGES are Father Abrabanl's. by Abraham
| Weatherwise, Gent. printed in Philadel-
phia; Poor Willis. which, in addition. con-
tains a table of the tides, Quaker meetings,
receipts; the Lancaster Almanac, contain
ing new liberty songs; the New jersey Al
nlanac. by Timothy Irueman, The Colum-
bian Almanac, printed in 1871, and with a
frontisplece of d fierce American eagle
grasping a bunch Of arrows in one claw
and the olive branch in the other; Father
ITa,nmany's Almanac for 1893, with astro-
nomical observations and every other thing
necessary in an almanac" The books show
marks OF long use, for an almanac in those
days was authority, ard next to the bible
was the most read book. Doubtless, in
some places the almanac received the
preference. We can easily fancy
how important q place it must
have occupied in Il household for books in
those struggling days were ~luxuries indeed.
1t hung from a string at the corner of the
chimney place for a whole year and then
was carefully placed away for historical
reference. At it's place it was consulted by
the farmer for weather prophecies and tables
OF interest, by the housekeeper for recipes,
and at night the essays and poems were
read aloud for the benefit of the children.
The essays were mostly in the form OF ad-
vice on choosing wives and husbands, on
the evils of Drunkenness, contentmeut and
cogetousness, temperance and gluttony, "of
sympathetic tenderness, with u caution
against carrying it 80 far as to degenerate
into Stiffness" and dozens of kindred sub.
iects. There were fables, one of which il
entitled The Happy Man and the True
Gentleman" Each fable. of course, con-
tains a moral. Otherwise the printing OF
fiction would have been considered an un.
pardonable sin. The calendar for the
months is headed with q poem, usually or
q religious subject. Father Abraham's al
manao for 1878 contains this epieram, illus
trating the conjugal affection existing be
tween a man and his wife:
Says Nan one dry to her husband Dick
"Richard, what think you OF Old Nick? p
II Think says he. "he's either crazy,
As we'll as old, or very lazy"
Your reason, if you please quote Nan
my faith," says Dick. '''tis might
plain.
], His will or power must failed T. assis
: him
Or you'd been somewhere else by thj
time
The calendars are both interesting an
r amusing. The weather prophet in thos
: days had either exceeding confidence in hi
ability to ~foreses the future. or knew tina
he was working off his ''medicine' on
~cfedulous reade.. At the same time he q,
/ ercised an amusing degree of discretio,
The almanac which appeared in Januar
y contained weather prophecies for each da
of the year. These were given in OF
i, column while in an opposite column we,
; signs of the zodiac and brief proyerb
70 This weather prophet id the New Jers,
u | almanac announces that June 6, 1871. wi