Space Half-hours.

Otago Witness, Issue 1419, 1 February 1879, Page 32

Space Half-hours.

OACB UPON A TIME. By 11. Lapiiam.

" Old story book', old story books, wo owe yo much,

old friends."

What a strange life our forefathers mu&t have led in the age before printing, or to speak more correctly, before books became common. When tho Squire, in the reign of Bluff Kiug Hal, for instance, was tired of hawking and hunting all day, and was sittirg by hia evening fire, how did he beguile the tedious hours till bed time ? He could pcftrcely have b?pn dcunk every night of his life, and that eternal game of shovel board played with his mate must surely have grown liicsoine after iwhiio. Or, stranger

Still, what did our great great great grand mothers do when days were wet and roads were miry, and they could not ride a-pilUon behind man Giles to call up an their neighbours, or wade through sloppy country streets on their errands as Lady Bount'fuls to the village hard by. They might brew the old October, might cook those gigantic dinners for their liege lords and his followew to gorge themselves with by-and-bye (Ah, me ! for the glorious digestions and wonderful appetites of thoße times : no one can do justice to meats aud wines nowadays), might abuße their maids and box their scullions ears—another luxury denied to modern civilisation — might execute those gorgeous and tremendous pieces of tapestry and embroidery, bub how did they employ their leisure ; in fact, what did they do wilhthe'r Spare Half-hours ? We cannot realise such a life. But if our grown-up ancestors are to be pitied, what shall be said for the children? Oh, unhappy little primogenitors ! how utterly vacant, dreary and s*d, your lives must have been. The deer that fled through the bracken, the rabbits that skipped about the sandy hills, the hounds that slumbered on the dirty rush strewn floors, were luckier far than you. Mere sense of life and freedom, the Bunshine and the breeza, Biifficieccy of food and shelter, supplied their scanty needs, but for you there were the earnest ("-longing after higher nobler things than the V routine of daily life, the dreariness of evening and early morning hours, the eager questioning heart of childhood all unsatisfied. Fancy what a child's life must have been who could never have fallen in with Buch a comrade as Robinson Crusoe to convey him away to that lonely isle, and make his young heart thrill as he pointed to the mysterious footprints on the sand ; or who never once in all his lifo had gone with Aladdin down the awful chaßm leading to the enchanted garden ; or had never lam hidden with Ali Baba in the palm tree, quaking with terror as he watched the opening of the robber's cave. Our baby ancestors may have been hushed to sleep with nursery rhymes, for these are as old as childhood, and doubtl?ss Eve soothed little Cain and Abel with some antediluvian versionof "Byeßaby ßunting; 1 ' but had they any Mother Hubbat'd, or had Jack built his famous edifice in those days ?

I put it to any young reader who may honour me with a glance at thia page, is it not the height of absurdity to speak o£ those aa "the golden days," when the Swiss family Robinson had not yet discovered that Utopia, wherein all the creatures of the earth had crowded as into the ark, two and two of every kind, before Sandford and Merton were thought of— before even Sir Charles Grandteon was born. I have often wondered whether Sir Charles was in any way connected with the Sandford family, great granduiicle, perhaps, of that conceited and unbearable prig Harry, whose head I Bhould have had a satisfaction in punching in days gone by. However, not many children know Sir Charles nowadays, nevertheless, he was "a very pretty young gentleman." Even Harry is being forgotten, though still a few boys have a sneaking fondness for Tommy Merton, simply because he was not as good as he ought io bave beeD. It is something wonderful to view the elaborate care and art that are lavished on childrens' books nowadays. But I often wonder whether children prize and cherish their atory books as we uncles, fathers, and mothers used to do ours. I am afraid the plentifuluess of the supply and the cheap prices which have made them so accessible to all, have decreased their value. Does any modern youngster read over again and again some old dog-eared volume with crumpled leaves and finger stained pages, which marks, however, only make it the dearer. Children have their monthly serials, and rather highly spiced some of these productions are ; and they look out eagerly for the next number of the "continued" story, and have neither time nor inclination to re-read. This I cannot but fancy to be a disadvantage. With us our story books were passed from hand to hand, nay, often from generation to generation, and like old wine, the book became mellowed and full flavoured from its length of years. Sometimes, to">, grandpapa in his spectacles, or graDdmamma with placid face fringed in her white cap border, woull take up the battered volume, and we children would wonder greatly why grandpapa's face wore so sad a look, or why a tear came stealing down dear granny's furrowed cheek as they turned the faded leaves. Now we know that in the familiar pages they saw not the printed pictures, but that memory with gentle hand lifted the curtain of oblivion and gave back for a moment their summer time of childhood, and that they read only the sad, wild, pathetic story of onco upon a time.