A CENTURY AGO.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 103, 3 May 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

A CENTURY AGO.

Mrs. Haldane, the mother of Viscount Haldane, shortly before her death at the age of 100 placed on record some memories of her childhood which give a vivid picture of child life in England a century ago. "We children," she said, 'were taken from our cribs about seven a.m., and plunged overhead into a bath of cold water —winter and summer. "Lessons were carried on with a governess, and I learned to read at three years of age. The multiplication table and French verbs -were repeated while holding a backboard, and with our feet in the stocks. These stocks were especially mad-e by a joiner." 'While eight to ten years of age I read through Voltaire's histories of Louis XIV., Charles VII. and Peter the Great. "Schools were very different from those of tie present day. I have known a boy cousin return .from school black and blue from bruises inflicted by the cane, while a companion lived for three days up a chimney in hiding. A girl cousin was punished by being locked up in a barn and fed on bread- and water. "In the year 1832 cholera visited the British Isles. It was an unknown disease and perplexed the medical faculty. We. children were given port wine and ale to strengthen our systems against attack—remedies to which we did not object*. In those days children were given a mug of ale at dinner time. . "Like all gentlemen, my father wore stays when hunting. My mother always wore a large white' or blue satin hat in the evening, with long birds of paradise feathers hanging from it. It was the custom in those days for young people never to enter a room where there were visitors or strangers without dropping a curtsey, and they always addressed their elders as 'sir' or 'ma'am.' Nor were we allowed to speak till we were spoken to. "I can remember driving fifteen miles in an open dog cart to visit a dentist at an inn. We had to drive over the bleak moors during a snow storm, and not far from the roadside hanging on a gibbet was the effigy of a tramp named Winter who had murdered an old woman. I can remember the clanking of the chains to this day."