The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-09-25
DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL TICKET,
FOR PRESIDT>-T.
WILLIAM ]. BRYAN
FOR VICE PRESIDENT.
ADLAI E.
OLD TIMES.

OF old tlmeS-1fty, seventy years ago
lin an old country. No people have
changed more in a half or three
quarters Of a century than the English
people have. They have changed in
character and habits no little. They
are more civilized now, less given to
boisterousness and violence, out less
joyous and ebullient in character. A
shoemaker at Dereham sixty or seventy
years ago still lives, very old, aged
101. He has lost his sight and cannot
read. but he was much given to read
ing when his eyes were good. He
read good books-books of power, and
among then Shakespeare. He said to
the parson who writes pleasantly Of
him, pointing to his books shelved be-
hind him:
"Ah, 1 shall never read them any
more. They're all dumb or asleep to
me now, sir. But yet, you see, they're
not all dea n forgotten. There's
old Shakespeare still comes back upon
me. / used to read old Shakespeare
almost every week seventy or eighty
years ago. Don't you think he was
a wonder, sir?" One day. not so very
long ago, he began abruptly to recite
the famous sililoquy of Hamlet:
To be, or not to be: hat is the ques-
ton;
He got as far as
Tha makes calamity of so long life
Then he paused with a curious fixed
set in the blind eyes. turned my way.
"Ah, sir, / do pray God to deliver me
from that-that temptation of getting
tired of this life now"
That was the way that a worthy
shoemaker named Barton educated his
mind and cultivated his tastes in the
long ago. We wonder how many English
shoemakers study Shakespeare now.
He is much more talked about than
read now in our own country. We
were asked within a yew years
Wasn't Shakespeare a right smart
man."
We find recorded by the same minis
ter Of the Established Church. an in
4teresting fact in connection with the
original and famous roadbuilder, Nc
Adam, the Irishman, who put the world
under such indebtedness to him. In
1927, it ppear that the English gov
eminent made him surveyor of roads'
with a grant of $50. 900 for his great ser
vices. This was most richly merited.
The minister writes that 1t was he VIII
brought about such vastly improved
roads in England. He says:
Even as late as 1880 (and 1 believe
after that the parish roads within -four
or five miles Of Norwich WeCe SO near
" impossible HI Ar. Micklewaite,
owner of Taverham hall-a consider
able squire and high sheriff of Norfolk
in 1S10Hused habitually to drive into
Norwich with four horses. as his son
Informed me some twenty years ago,
adding, as if it were within his own
recollection: He couldn't help himself:
the roads were all rucks.' The old
Lady Suffield,' as she IS still called by
those VIII remember her ladyshlp, even
down to the time of her death in 1850,
never drove out from Blicklink park
with less than four horses. 1t was
not from any love OF display: she nao
never lone anything else all her life,
and she would go and stop the car
rage at some of the cottages, talk
tt the Die people"
One Of the old folks told lie minister
of a rector in the old tinso T:esldlns
al a ''tithe dinner held in the parish
early in this century. Afte: the eating
and drinking Gor that is still a pro-
nounced English bad habit the rector
threw a guinea, (somethins over IS in
gold) on the table, leaving them to
spend the guinea as they p; ,ased under
another chairman. II wasn't half
a bad little gentleman wasn't Mr..
Aufrere, and he and the lady coul do
a kindness to any one--that they
would. Preach? 1 don't recollect as
any one made much O. the preaching
in those days. We mostly did wrout
it." said his aged informant. The
same parson said that working in the
gardens on Sunday afternoons was
"the universal practice" then. Fight
ings were extremely common. and
brutality prevailed alarmingly. The
parson writes:
Happily they have all passed away
from us during the last sixty or seven
~ years. And no wise man can be
other than thankful that it is So"
Dancing hat was practiced among
the people is now "a dead art" The
parson thinks it has been a loss"
We make another quotation from the
paper upon which we have drawn for
the edification of our readers-a paper
entitled 1.-THE Elders of Already" to
be found in that very able English
periodical, 1.-The Nineteenth Century"
The author of it says that the games
of sixty and seventy years ago from
"skittles upward"-have vanished, and
there are now no outlets ito exuber-
ant vitality" Law has taken hold and
while directing violence and wee, has
banished privilege and pleasures. 1t
has entered the homes too much and
s-urtailed the liberties of the people to
me extent. The paron's notes this
Id says:
"As n growled out to me in bis in