The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-10-26

A n. the good old times, the brave |
u old times, the times in New
York forty years ago when the
baby born in the Centennial year was
beginning to run around and take all |
kinds of notice; when his father, sci |
entiically minded, made a point of
calling at "a Park Row to see a con-
trivance, the first installed in the city,
that lifted people from the street level
% the eighth floor in less time than
Il took to walk UP the flights of stairs:
when his mother, wishing to pay
visit to friends who lived in French
fat in the Dakota, a monumental folly
built in desert of shanties at Contra!
Park West and Seventy-second street,
took her lunch along, foreseeing that
the horse car was likely to get stalled,
and, anyway, the excursion was so
distant that she didn't know when
she would get hot meal again-these
were the times and the days when
metropolitan life was worth living,
because to live it required some per-
sonal initiative and every feature OF
II was not cut and dried for one by
telephone, automobile and other mod
Un devtries.
The demi-centenarians who are
saving up to buy ticket by airplane
70 Cherbourg cannot remember that
they were less comfortable in those
ancient days when It required nearly
two weeks Of time to get there by the
fastest steamer. They were quite con-
ent TO write a hundred letters, and
post them at three cents each. where
now they tinkle the telephone. They
were happy to move to Forty-second
street when they became prosperous,
clean the furnace, spade the snow off
inc stoop where they sat summer eve
nings They could not foresee the day
when they were to walk past a splen-
nd public library. erected on the site
OF reservoir, to Fourteenth street,
tne true trading street, already being
nValled by Twenty-thlrd street, and
IN the mass of eager, earnest. lively
and vacuous faces Of the people recog-
nize not one they ever saw before.
No. these denis" are practically
unchanged by all the changes that
progress has wrought about them. II
ney have learned wisdom Of life, Il 1,
not to attach sanctity to things be-
cause they were old and not to at
zach sanctity to other things beca use
they are new.
The Atlantic Cable.
There are fresh dtscover,e. daily
tHe demi-centenarian remembers per-
'cty the great Juror made over Cy-
rus Fieldss accomplishment In lay.
ing an Atlantic cable. He can recol.
ec' having that genius pointed out &c
Sin as he stepped out Of his house or
North Gramercy Square "a tall apart.
eHl building stands there now anC
.HIea to walk to his office. And q
n' was too late (the demi, now. T.
morse IN life. he will not forge
az. o. Ira Cornell and his sister, Mrs
,sasha' Wood, tall, gaunt and cour
SSsned persons, came to his mother
-'Lse as supper guests.
Inc poignancy of these memorie,
-e telegraph, cable and other won
S.rS dies out in the new wonder of N,
,.reless, In 1880, a year or two b..
50 Fl'.tzer came out of the West
We word had reached the ultima thul
invention. So people said, and Their
al edort made to induce Congress
smut up the useless Patent Office 1,
,,s stn,Hg'on, Everything had been in
ecsp'tulate mentally what tn
.E 70 tie new generation has see,
MS brief forty years OF experienc
~ I1W York. lie was a youngste
80 Sam7rch opened the Metropoli
~. W opera House, when the Museum @
t,uFaI History stood a gaunt, singl
.hs no tield. when the Metropol,
~. Muleum Was likewise one dl
hoh only, and his mother hurrie
~ quickly past a nude by Cabana
"'A q bus on Broadway befor