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Show I WE'RE BETTER OFF TODAY There is not, wo thlnK, so much de-I de-I luslon about the "good old times" as I once there was. Wo are coming to I have a realization that with all of our drawbacks we get on well. How well a paper by Lyman Boecher Stowe, In tho current World's Wont, tells us. I It makes reference to tho Titanic dts- aster with its numberless cases of I hcrolBm to show that tho quality of courago and sacrifice has not weaken-W-. ed In tho present day, compare It as 531 wo W'H' Dut BS to n,Bt6r,a' mattors, Green's history of the English people I speaks of tho trusts of the day of Charles I. Wine, soap, salt and al-B al-B most every article of domestic con-H con-H sumption wero in the hands of mono-H mono-H polities, and prices wore out of all H proportion to the profit gained by the H crown. In our own country, as late H as 1BD2, history tells ub of election I frauds In Now York that today oould H not be duplicated. There was light-Si light-Si ing at the polls and stealing of the H ballot boxes. 'Wigs, boys and paup-B paup-B era," voted, and the police dared not Hi Interfere. Br In 1776 one-sixth of tho people B were slaveu, poor blacks, who were B bought, sold, mortgaged and ftogge. Many whites under the names of ro-1 demptloners and Indentured servants wero limited In civil rights and bound to sorvlco. New Hampshire limited suffrage to Protestant taxpayers taxpay-ers South Carolina to tree white men with a freehold of BO acres. The governor gov-ernor of the state had to bo wcrth 150,000, which was comparab'o to ' about a million today. McMaster in his history, says filibustering, gerrymandering, gerry-mandering, stealing governorships, using us-ing force at the polls, distributing patronage and alt forms ot fraud and political tricks were used. There was Imprisonment for debt. A thief was branded with a "T" 'burglars 'bur-glars were branded, ears trero cut off as a punishment for "dishonest cooks" and "careless Ash dressers" In Virginia. The pillory was in gen- ' cral use. Thero were 20 crimes for which a man was hanged In Pennsylvania; Penn-sylvania; In Virginia 27. Tho law fell I with special severity on the unrepresented unrepre-sented and voiceless. A pauper was i lashed and stood In tho pillory, and his wife and children had to wear the letter "P" on their clothing. Tho comforts of life wero few. New York had no paved streets until 1750, and Philadelphia long after that was known as "filthy dirty," even ev-en for that time- Goats ana pigs wan dered In her streets as late as 1840. Except for the rich, tho houses were small, families were largo, and In almost al-most all houses trades and manufactures manufac-tures wero carried on. So the condl- ' tions of life may be imagined. There wero only two hospitals In tho whole I country until after the revolution. ' Surgeons were few, and In case of . accident a neighbor cut off a crushed i limb with a carpenter's knife and stanched the blood by searing with red hot Irons. There was a preju- dice everywhere against fresh air, and all houses wero tightly closed. I Heavy drinking was universal as much so among tho clergy as tho laity. , A Hartford clergyman supplemented supplement-ed his slender salary by running a distillery. So the conclusion Is that neither In the heroic virtues nor In other ways were the "good old times" anything to which wo sh'ould Uko to return. They held the seeds of modern progress, but the world today Is a much better placo to live in than It was a century ago, and ' this Is especially true as to the man ' ot little Income or Influence. Indian-! apolls News, . ' |