The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-12-15
"The Good old rtmes. >,

The Good Old Itme
During the midwinter holiday season
probably more than any other time of the
year there IS talk by the oldest inhabi-
tants" and those who take their cues
from them. of the good old times Of long
ago" In those indefinite days. according
TO these worshipers of antiquity, the
world was vast Elysium peace, plenty,
hospitality and liberality prevailed; the
winds and the weather were tempered
the better to mankind's comfort. and the
/ human family was one vast and loving
/ brotherhood
There was never a greater mistake
made than to think anything Of the kind,
and those who have drawn such conclu-
sion from history have either not read it It
all or failed to read it Alright. The days
in which we live are the best the world
ever saw, and are continually improving.
1t is sometimes almost as hard to see good
in certain incidents of the evolution of
our race and our country as it is to peer
through a fiagstone. But civilization
cannot go backward its trend is eternally
and irresistibly forward. The present
as compared with the good old times of
long ago" is as the arc electric lamp of to-
day compared with the tallow dip which
the old timers burned to keep evil spirits
away.
There arrived at New York recently a
consignment of relics of the good old
times" that are to be exhibited in cham
Der of horrors. In the consignment are IA
nous instruments Of torture from various
of faf6 Of
Nuremberg, racks on which bones have
been broken while yet in the living hui
man body, iron masks that were screwed
on the heads of alleged heretics and
witches until the skulls were crushed,
and other instruments OF equally horrible
history. These things were popular in the
good old times" They were utilized as
promoters of religious belief and arbiters
Of civil rights Suppose church or a
landed proprietor should attempt to use
them to-day?
To come down to local affairs at a
more recent period of the good old
times it is fact that at one time peo-
pie who differed in religious faith from
those who first landed on the bluff at
Yamacraw were not permitted to remain
in Savannah. A shipload of unfortunate
Catholics, who desired home in the then
new world, were refused a landing here
They later found a home in Canada. OF
number of Jews who thought to find a
haven of refuge here from prosecutions
elsewhere, only few were permitted to
remain in Savannah. An order shutting
every one of them out was at first issued,
but was subsequently mitigated, and a
few of the Jews remained. And some of
their descendants are citizens of Savan-
nah to-day. Suppose Savannah should
attempt to exclude Catholics and Jews
to-day, would it be regarded as an i'm
provement upon these degenerate times"
in which we live2
AS matter of fact, those good old
times, " concerning which we hear so much
rubbish, were dominated by a spirit of in
tolerance that would be simply unbeara-
BILE if it could be and were to be immedi-
ately revived in the present, after our
years of liberty of thought and action
That spirit, by the way, is not dead yet,
though very near it. Occasionally it
crops out in opposition to Sunday trains,
Sunday newspapers and other modern
outgrowths that force themselves upon
nobody, but afford pleasure and benefit
to thousands of hberal-minded persons.
There are still "blue laws" upon our stat
ute books, but they are for the most part
imperative except when revived by that
identical, though modernized, spirit of in
tolerance that drove the Pilgrims to New
England; and which, by the way, domi-
mated them when they settled there.
Taken all in ALL the modern times Of
to-day are incomparably better than any
'old tines that ever existed, the United
States is the greatest and best govern
ment in the world, Georgia is the best
state in the union, and Savannah is Geor-
gia's greatest commercial city.