Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1897-05-13
ThosE .eoop OLD IlMEs..


Compare with the New Times.
Don't talk to me of the good old
tines" said the old-timer. II know
all about it, and tell you these new
times are better in every way than the
times that are past. Let me tell you:
I'm those days people drank green tea
and ate heavy suppers and went to bed
with warming pans and nightcaps and
slept upon feather beds, with curtains
around them, and dreaded fresh air in
their rooms as much as sensible folks
nowadays dread to be without it. And
if they heard noise in the night they
got up and CROPPED about in the dark and
procured light with much difficulty,
with flint and steel and finder box and
unpleasant sulphur matches. And
went to the medicine chest and took
calomel and blue pills and salts and
SIENNA and jalap and rhubarb.
SIN those days the fine gentlemen
tippled old Jamaica and bitters in the
morning and lawyers took their clients
to the sideboard for dram, while the
fine ladies lounged on sofas, reading
Byron, Moore and Scott. In those days
long leather fire buckets were hung in
the entries, filled with water, and when
a fire broke out every citizen was a fire.
man.
"In those days gentlemen chewed to-
bacco, Indifferent where they expec-
torated, and ladies cleaned their dental
pearls with snuff, wore thin shoes and
laced themselves into feminine wasps
and consumption. Babies were put to
sleep with spanking and paregoric and
urchins were logged at school and sub
jected to all sorts of unheard-of chastise-
ments. Picture books and toys were
dear and poor. Big boys played
hockey in the streets with crooked
sticks and hard wooden balls, police
men being unknown, and went home to
their mothers to have broken shins
anointed with opodeldoc.
Street fights occurred between
schools and schoolmasters were perse-
cuted by the biggest boys. Young la
dies danced nothing but formal and
and decorous cotillons or fast and furi-
Gus Virginia reels, in wide entry halls,
by the light of the candles that called
for shutters every ten minutes, to music
by black fiddlers or cracked and jung
ling panes, while mothers sat darping
stockings and fathers played backgam-
mon, or gambled, swigged brandy and
water, came home late, roaring baccha-
nalian songs and inquiring of their
sleepy wives in which brown parcel the
milk was wrapped up.
Boarding school misses, in calico
gowns, practiced the Battle of Prague,
'Caliph of Bagdad' or Clements Soma
tas' on instruments not much bigger
than a modern young lady's travelling
trunk, strung with jingliRg wires that
were always swapping. and occasionally
chirped Tom Moore's Melodies or such
airs as 'Gayly the Troubadour,' Pray,
Papa, Stay a Little Longer or The
Banks of the Blue-oo-oo Mosche-he-he-
helle.'
"Guests sat on hard wooden chairs,
sometimes with their feet up, over roar
ing wood fires, 'spittin' around and
maxim 'emselves sociable with juleps,
eggnogg, apples and cider.
Every man shaved, wore bell
crown hat, swallow-tail coat with a
horse-collar; carried turnip-shape
timekeeper in his waist-band, with a
heavy seal hanging out; had his
brooches pockets full Of silver half-dol-
lars; wore round-toed boots and linen
shirts; cased his throat with high
standing shirt collars; ate all manner
of nuuseous quack medicines; dined at
one o'clock (some families eating the
pudding before the meat); took maps in
the afternoon-on Sundays preferring
the pews of the church for that pur-
pose; smoked long nines;' ate fried
oysters and lobster salad and drank
fiery Madeira or punch at IL o'clock
at night. Got his feet wet on slushy
days, took awful colds and rheuma.
tisms, sent for DR.. Sangrado, and was
bled, blistered and leeched; had night
mare, headache, dyspepsia, fever, de-
lirium, death and darkened room.
'Give me the good old times again
not."-N. Y. Herald.