THOSE GOOD OLD TIMES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XX, Issue XV, 9 April 1898, Page 443

THOSE GOOD OLD TIMES.

‘Don't talk to me of the “good old times,” ’ said the old timer. ‘1 knowall about it. and 1 tell you these new times are better in every way than the times that are past. Let me tell you: — ‘ln those days people drank green tea and ate heavy suppers and went to bed with warming pans and nightcaps. and slept upon feather beds, with curtains around them, ano dreaded fresh air in their rooms as much as sensible folks nowadays dread to be without it. And if they- heard a noise in the night they got up and groped about in the dark and procured a light w-ith much difficulty, with flint and steel and tinder box ar.d unpleasant sulphur matches. And went to the medicine chest and took calomel and blue pills and salts and senna and jalap and rhubarb. ‘ln those fine days the gentlemen tippled old Jamaica and bitters in the morning, and lawyers took their clients to the sideboard for a dram, while the fine ladies lounged on sofas, reading Byron, Moore and Scott. In those days long leather fire buckets were hung in the entries, filled with water, ami when a fire broke out eveey citizen was a fireman. ‘ln those days gentlemen chewed tobacco, indifferent where they expectorated, and ladies cleaned their dental pearls with snuff, wore thin shoes and laced themselves into feminine wasps and consumption. Babies were put to sleep with spanking and paregoric, and urchins were flogged at school and subjected to all sorts of unheard of chastisements. Picture books and toys were dear and poor. Big boys played ‘hoekey’ in the streets with erooked sticks and hard wooden balls, policemen being unknown, and went home to their mothers to have broken shins a anointed with opodeldoc. •Street fights occurred between schools and schoolmasters were persecuted by the biggest boys. Young ladies danced nothing- but formal and decorous cotillions, or fast and furious Yirginia reels, in wide entry halls, by the light of the candles that called for snuffers every ten minutes, to music by black fiddlers, or cracked and jingling panes, while mothers sat darning stockings and fathers played backgammon or gambled, swigged brandy and water, came home late, roaring bacchanalian songs, and inquiring of their sleepy wives in which brown parcel the milk was wrapped up. ‘Boarding school misses, in calico gowns, practised the “Battle of Prague,” “Caliph of Bagdad" or “Clementi's Sonatas” on instruments not much bigger than a modern young lady's travelling trunk, strung with jingling wires that were always snapping, and occasionally chirped Tom Moore’s “Melodies" or such airs as “Gayly the Troubadour,” “Pray, Papa, Stay a Little Longer," or “The Banks of the Blue-00-oo Mosche-he-he-helle.” ‘Guests sat on hard wooden chairs, sometimes with their feet up. over roaring wood fires, “spiffin' around and makin' 'emselves sociable” with juleps, egg-nogg, apples and cider. ‘Every man shaved wore a bellcrowned hat. a swallow - tailed coat with a horse-collar; carried a turnipshaped timekeeper in his waistband, with a heavy seal hanging out; had his breeches pockets full of silver halfdollars; wore round-toed boots and linen shirts; cased his throat with high-standing shirt collars; ate all manners of nauseous quack medicines; dined at one o'clock (some families eating the pudding before the meat); took naps in the afternoon—on Sundays preferring the pews of the church for that purpose; smoked 'long nines'; ate fried oysters and lobster

salad, and drank fiery Madeira or punch at twelve o'clock at night. Got his feet wet on slushy days, took awful colds and rheumatisms, sent for Dr. Sangrado. and was bled, blistered and leeched; had nightmare, headache, dyspepsia. fever, delirium, death ami darkened room. •Give me the good old times again —not.’