The record-union., 1897-06-17
Weather EOreCas
THE AGE OF ADVANCEMENT.

The rural mail delivery excitement in
the Campbell and Los Gatos region,
Santa Clara County, has died out and
ruralists in that part get their mail
matter at their doors without any more
grumbling on the part of shop keepers,
who feared that this added comfort to
farm life would injure trade by making
the farmer and his family more con-
tent to remain at home.
There never yet was a positive
advance and betterment in physical or
social conditions proposed or tried that
narrow-minded greed and cold selfish
ness did not rise up in arms against it,
We remember, however that there
was one industry started a few
years ago against which little
complaint, we believe, was made
1t stood alone, significantly in
that respect, namely, the electric
messenger box and the messenger SER
vice related thereto. But it was not
IN operation two years before the tele-
phone was introduced as a common
convenience, and Immediately there
went up the plant that the new device
OF communication was bad and devilish
because it would throw out so large a
body of messenger boys, the support of
widowed mothers and invalided faith
ers. But the complaint died with it's
first breathing and the telephone is to-
day business, if not a social. neces-
sity.
When the sewing machine came in
1t was against a bitter cutlery, and even
some ministers of the gospel pounded
pulpits in their denunciation of it be-
cause it would throw out of EMPLOY
ment an army of sewing women. But
1t only served to tighten labor. to give
hundreds of thousands easier work and
to employ as many more hundreds Of
thousands in sewing, who before could
not engage in the industry at all.
When the typewriter was invented
there went up a howl against it in be-
half of copyists, but it is the copyists'
friend and a business economy of meal
culable value. The railroad displaced
the bull team and the prairie schooner
IN the midst of a roar in behalf of stage
drivers, teamsters and raisers of feed
for horses. But the man would be
deemed insane who would to-day pro-
pose a return to the old methods of
transportation, while more horses are
employed in hauling to rail than ever
We're used in transportating over long
distances.
When cable cars were set in motion
in San Francisco-the first city in
which they were used-there was loud
cutlery against them by raisers of
horses and dealers in and growers of
horse feed. But who would return to
the times of the bob-tail car and the
Flooding and cruelty tasked car horse
in a. city's streets?
So it has been, and is, all along the
line. just as it was with rural postal
delivery recently in Santa Clara, and
as it is with the people who rail at
good, firm, permanent macadam roads
because they wear out horse shoes
somewhat faster than do mud and dust.
The world viii always have people who
do not see beyond the ends of their
noses, and in whom selfshness and mar
noW-m indedness are Distinguishing
characteristics. Rural postal delivery is
coming. 1t viii be with us just as soon
as We provide roads over which pos
tai carriers can travel half decently
Rural life is to be made more desirable
to just that extent, and the sun will
have its coming up and its going down
Just the same. despite the growing of
the calamity people.
Concerning the proposition to annex
Hawaii to the United States. the ex-
preston of English papers is far more
kindly and favorable than was antic-
ipated. But one leading journal is,