EARLY DAY STORIES. 331 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

 Looking Backward. 



No. 1. 



It is a truth that "Truth is stranger than fiction." I 

 am led to this conclusion by looking backward less than two 

 and a half generations. Most of the great inventions that 

 have placed the progressive people of the world away ahead 

 of anything thought of, or dreamed of three generations 

 ago, are the results of investigation and research of the last 

 eighty years, and chiefly also of the last forty years. Fric- 

 tion matches were invented in 1829, and the machinery for 

 making them was patented in 1842, but they did not come 

 into general use until about the year 1846, or later. The 

 knowledge of photography as it now exists was acquired 

 in 1835, but it was not used extensively until about fifteen 

 years later. The first practical mowing machine was invent- 

 ed in 1833, but it was twenty years before mowing machines 

 and reapers came into general use. The first sewing machine 

 that was practical and successful was made in 1846. The 

 first ocean steamship to carry passengers and freight, crossed 

 the Atlantic in 1838. The first practical use of the tele- 

 graph was in 1844, when the line from Baltimore to Wash- 

 ington was opened for messages on May 27 of that year. 



Let us go back to the year 1840, just seventy-six years 

 from the present time. Here is an inventory of some of 

 the things that people did not have seventy-six years ago, 

 although the list is by no means complete. There are many 

 things in general use now not included in the annexed list, 

 that people never had heard of seventy-six years ago. Sev- 

 enty-six years ago there were no friction matches, sewing 

 machines, washing machines, mowing machines, reapers, 



