The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-02-26
LOOKING BAcKKwARp.

It is interesting sometimes to look backward and see how many centuries of time passed with little of what we of this day consider actual necessaries of existence. In methods of communica- tion and of travel nearly all the great changes and improvements have come about within the memory of people now living. The legions of Ceasar could travel as fast as could the soldiers of Andrew Jackson, and could convey their stores and munitions as easily and speedily ais hescould. The news of the battle of Pharsslus, fought between ceasar and Pompey half a century be- fore the birth of Christ. could have reached Rome in as short a time as the reports from the battle of New Orleans could have reached Washington; prob ably In less time. The nobles of an- cient Greece and Rome, thirty centu- ries ago, could travel as fast as the best people could in washington's day. True. there had been some advances in methods of water travel, but not very great. if we may believe histoSy, and on land there was no advance. The chariots of the wealthy. thousand years before the Christian era, were drawn as swiftly as were the carriages. of our own people a centnry ago.
 When we come to think seriously and study carefully the condition of tho world from the earliest dawn of his- tory to the present day, wefare bound to wonder at the lack of enterprise and inventiveness which endured for thous- ands of years. The children were con tent to follow in the footsteps of the fathers and each generation plodded along just as previous generations had done. Some advance was made, per . haps. but 1t was slight, and 1t fell to the present time to get out of the old ruts and apparently awake from what had been an exceedingly long sleep.
 Two great discoveries. gunpowder and printing, have some centuries of age to their credit. but those two are about all Practical steam propulsion on land or sea is less than century old, the electric telegraph came into use when many now living were grown men and women. Electric lighting, telephones, motors and various other to excite wonder. all came on during the present generation, and so of many other inventions which we now feel that we couldn't live without. If all the inventions and discoveries of even one century were wiped out. we would for time be like helpless children.
 And it is somewhat curious to think of the way we still adhere to some of the old habits in our methods of express sion and comparison. When the en- gineer or mechanic wants to tell us the power of steam engine or electric ''horse power" going back to the strength of the horse who used to be the motive power in most instances to get a comparison for the new agent. And so the electrician and scientist will tell you that his electric light is a cer- tain candle power taking us to the time when candles were the main source of artificial light and using one of them as the unit of light for electric illumination. So in our measures and weights we still use the terms that were adopted by our forefathers cen- turies ago. and in various other re- spects we cIothe the new with some of the habiliments of the old. All this, however. does not alter the inexplicable fact that there was little advance in human inventiveness prior to the last cant,,rv