OCR Text |
Show YOUNG LONDON. The author of a series of papers on "Young London" in the Telegraph (London), records some of the changes of the half century. When he first began to remember things, there were only two railroads in the United Kingdom. It took the best part of four days to get to Paris; and the postage of a letter to that city was one and eight pence. There were no ocean steamers; and five weeks were often consumed in journey to New York. There were no Lucifer matches lighting on or off the box; and flint and steel, and the tinder box, and matches dipped in brimstone, reigned supreme in the kitchen; oil was still burned in the street lamps of Grosvenor square. There were no electric telegraphs, no post office money orders, no steel pens, in common use, no envelopes, no perambulators. There were no cheap newspapers, no shilling magazines, no post-cards, no perforated stamps and counterfoils, and no paraffin candles. There was no a hotel in England where a lady could dine in a public room. There were only two decent French restaurants in London. There was no photography, no benzoline, no chloroform, no glycerine, no collodion and no guncotton. There were no mauve and no magenta dyes. There were no preserved meats, soups, or vegetables. There was but little chocolate, and no cocoa. Soda water was a shilling a bottle. There were no hansom cabs, and no knifeboards to the omnibuses. There were no refrigerators and no sewing machines. There were no keyless or crystal cased watches; no Albert or Bregnet watch chains; no electrogilding electro gilding nor silvering, and no electrotyping electro typing. The steel fork in ordinary use had only two prongs; "balanced" table knives were unknown. There were no stays that were not instruments of torture, and no walking boots for ladies. There was no Balbriggan nor Balmoral hoisery [hosiery]. There were only a few velocipedes, and there were no revolvers. There was no guttapercha and very few cigars. |