Burke Manuscript

Burke Manuscript: Page 147

Transcript

Ruminating

People of today run away with the idea that the old ones of thirty years ago were an outlandish, uncouth rough sort of know nothings, contented with their lot but quite unfit to be mentioned and thought of in comparison with the new generation, with their modern ideas, rules and regulations, and generally, do as you’re told. Poor old chaps!! Some man – was it Dean Swift? – wrote “young men think old men fools, but old men are sure that young men are fools!” The old fellows, excepting those who have fallen by the way side, have been through the furnace, and they have a faint idea that a good many of the young ones of the coming generation have only a very, very moderate notion of the difficulties that are growing and fast accumulating around them at present, and in the future.

Early closing! Bless the novices, why thirty years ago, Bethel Ware, who built the first portion of Messrs. A.J. White & Co big furnishing establishment, and the leading draper suggested early closing and the remainder Mesdames Williams, Coe, and Skillicorn, and Mr Lowther and one or two others agreed. So that the poor old benighted ones of those days, were even earlier in the field than the agitating Mr Clark. But, love you, did it last? No. Why? Because in that age, individualism triumphed uncontrolled. The energetic to the front, and no tape measuring and making people in one mould, as at present seems to be the controlling idea. Men had to face bread at a 1/-, Salt butter 2/-, Eggs 3/-, Flour 20/- a cwt, mutton 6d and 7d, beef 7 and 8d, Pork 9d, and old Waterlows, the original pork butcher’s sausages one shilling, with sugar, decent brown, 6d to 8d, and Price’s candles 2/-. Very different to this day, and yet, it is on record and known, and people live who know it well, some now successful farmers and tradesmen, that unemployed meetings were not unknown, and the Government compelled to find work – yes, work at, for able bodied men, 3/6 and 4/- a day, and at that price the grounds around the Government buildings were made, and Cathedral Square levelled. Oh yes, the old fellows had some difficulties, not trades unions strikes, or factory Coys or any of the well studied notions arising from a too developed civilization – call it so – and a great amount of comfortable conveniences, but, little bothers arising in the struggle of rough work, building lean-tos and sod huts, fencing