The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-05-10

Without any apology for its belated APP
p~earance, and seemingly quite uncon-
scious that it was not right up to date
and at the head of the procession, a copy
of the Chicago Times, date Monday
morning, October s, 1894" showed up
among Tn Posts exchanges last We'd
nesday, the 5th of May, 1893. We do not
mention this in a fault-finding spirit, for
The Post mas no grievance against the
p. O. d. The general excellence of the
postal service is nowhere better eXem-
plified than in the prompt, regular. and
rapid transportation of the enormous and
rapidly growing mass of newspapers that
it is required to handle. The fact that a
single one of The Posts exchanges went
astray or tarried by the way more than
three and a half years is far less re-
markabte thar the splendid efficiency
which CkaracteriZes the railway mail
service.
To rave a newspaper come to hand
some years after its date would have
been sufficiently surprising, but this one
appeared to us three years or more af-
ter its death by hyphenation with the
Chicago Herald. After a varied and
eventful career it surrendered up its
individual being, likewise its politics, and
various other things. and went into Mr..
kohlsaat's combination to mingle with
strange elements and part forever with
its identity. But there is nothing ghost
ly, nothing suggestive of a s%ojourn in the
arkness of the narrow house in this
belated arrival. 1t looks as fresh as if
just from the press, which proves that
Garter H. Harrison, Jr., and William
Preston Harrison, publishers" used a
good quality of paper.
We know of nothing that impresses one
with the rapidity Of the flight of time
and the progress of events more forcfbly
than a glance at an old This
o of a dead and buried paper is not
Asom this month of May, 1898, to October,
1894, seems like gazing through an endless
vista of departed days. How many and
how great have been the happenings in
Chicago since the morning OF which that
paper started on its long journey! That
city was then inspired with an ambition
to pass New York in the census of 1900,
but it is now convinced that 1t must re-
main for many generations in the second
place. The Chicago convention its
dramatic episodes; the fierce battle of
the standards, hat ragged more fiercely
in Chicago than anywhere else: the fight
against boodling aldermen and a boodling
legislature; the insult of General Tanner
on Logan day; the election of Mason to
the United States senate; the great war
in the grain pits, in which Joseph Letter
v~anquished veteran and pocketed mil
lions-these are but a few of the things
that have agitated Chicago since that
October day in 1894, when this copy of
The Times went forth upon a journey
that was destined to last for more than
1900 times the space that measures day
and night to mortal man.
IL we were 10 Sldlltt. even III lHt liIO9l
cursory manner, at the happenings of
national and international Importance
since that day, volumes would be re-
CURED for the record. In these latter days
the world is humming along at a rate
which compares with the progress of the
first quarter of the century as biography
does with the stage coach. Yesterday to
us means what last year did to cur
grandfatherS.
And yet. with all this feverish rush the
average length of life increases. We not
only get as much life in a day as our
ancestors did in many days, but we nave
a greater number of our days of hurry
and push than they had of their slow,
Flooding days. Not that intense excite
ment is conductive of longevity. for it is
not, but because science has given us i'm
proved sanitary conditions and substi-
tuted Intelligent medical treatment for
the death-dea1ing medication of the
good old ng1on Post.