THE "GOOD" OLD DAYS(?)

Northern Advocate, 25 February 1925, Page 6

THE "GOOD" OLD DAYS(?)

(To the Editor.) I 3i r —I sometimes ask myself if there can be found in the wide world such a wonderful antidote to pessimism as the perusal of ancient history. A few hundred years is, after all, such a short space of time compared to the countless years that man has trod this planet that the changes which have taken place at most leave one breathless with wonder, not to Bay devout thankfulness that we live in the sometimes despised twentieth century. Rereading for about the fourth time a favourite book of mine recently, I came, across this word-picture of life aa it was a few hundred years ago: —

"We may now examine somewhat more minutely the character of the resistances which thus for a thousand years kept the population of Europe stationary.; The surface of the Continent was for the most part covered with trackless forests; here and there it was dotted with monasteries . and towns. In the lowlands and along the river courses were fens, sometimes hundreds of miles in extent, exhaling their pestiferous miasms, arid spreading agues far and wide. In Paris and London, the houses were of wood daubed with clay, and thatched with straw or reeds. They had no windows, and, until the invention of the sawmill, very few had wooden floors. The luxury of a carpet was unknown; some straw, scattered in the room, supplied its place. There were no j chimneys; the smoke of the ill-fed cheerless fire escaped through a hole in the roof. In such habitations there was scarcely any protection from the weather. 'No attempt was made at drainage, but the putrefying garbage and rubbish were simply thrown out of the door. Men, women, and children slept in the same apartment; not infrequently domestic animals wero their companions; in such, a confusion of the family it was impossible that modesty or morality could be maintained. The bed was usually a bag of straw, a wooden log served for a pil-

low. Personal cleanliness was utterly unknown; great officers of state, even dignitaries ho high as the Archbishop of Canterbury, swarmed with vermin; such it is related was the conditions of Thomas a Becket, the antagonist of an English king. To conceal personal impurity, perfumes were necessarily and profusely used. The citizen clothed himself in leather, a garment which, with its ever-accumulating impurity, might last for many years. He was considered to be in circumstances of ease, if he could procure fresh meal once a week for his dinner. The streets had no sewers; they were without pavements or lamps. After nightfall, the chamber-shutters were thrown open, and slops unceremoniously emptied down, to the discomforture of the wayfarer tracking 'his way through the narrow streets, with his dismal lantern in his hand. "Aeneas Sylvius, who afterwards became Pope Pius 11, and was therefore a very competent and impartial writer, has left us a graphic account of a journey he made to the British Islands, about 1430. He describes the houses of the peasantry as constructed of stones put together without mortar; the roofs were of turf, a stiffened bull's hide served for a door. The food consisted of coarse vegetable products, such a.s peas, and even the bark of

trees, In some places they were unacquainted with bread. . . . Such was

the degraded manners of the AngloSaxons, says:—"Their nobles, devoted to gluttony and voluptuousness, never visited the church, but the matins and mass were read over to them by a hurrying priest in their bedchambers, before they rose, themselves not listening. The common people were a prey to the more powerful; their property waS seized, their bodies dragged aw ay to distant countries; their maidens sold fori slaves. Drinking, day and night, wasi the general pursuit; vices, the companions of .inebriety, followed, effeminating the manly mind. The baronial castles were dens of robbers. The Saxon Chronicle records how men and women were caught and dragged into those strongholds, hung up by their thumbs or feet, fire applied to them, knotted strings twisted round their heads, and many other torments inflicted to extort ransom."

Of necessity space forbids a more lengthy quotation from this historical work; viz., "The History of the Conflict between Religion and Science"; but surely here is sufficient to show how marvellously we have progressed through the centuries that have passed. Read the history of any century prior to the one we live in, and compare. Mark the slow, yet sure, advance down the ages of man, the brute that was, but in whom the heavens is working that shall yet make of him something "a little lower than the angels." Through the unnumbered years that have passed since "over the nursing sod the shadows broke and the soul awoke to a strange dim dream of God" ruhs the story so beautifully expressed by one of America's greatest poets: —

With noiseless steps good goes its way; The earth shakes under evil's tread; We hear the uproar, and 'tis said The world grows wicked every day. It is not true. With quiet feet, In silence, Virtue sows _ t her seeds, While sin goes shouting out his deeds, And echoes listen and repeat. But surely as the old world moves And circles round the shining sun, So surely does God's purpose run And all the human race improves. Despite bold evil's' noise and stir, Fruit's golden harvests ripen fast. The Present far outshines the Past. Men's thoughts are higher than they were. I am, etc, STUDENT: