Excerpt from Men, Maidens and Manners, a Hundred Years AgoOur great-grandfathers stayed at home, the means of locomotion inland were very rude, almost all journeys being made on horseback, and the roads were something awful. There was nothing to tempt anyone to take a sea voyage, for the ships were small, and very high out of the water, which made them roll fearfully, and of such a build for speed, that a voyage to India took best part of a year to perform. A few young men of the upper classes went the grand tour, as it was called, upon the Continent, visiting France, Spain, Italy, and Austria but seldom going out of certain well-defined limits. Our great-grandfathers never were in a hurry - they had no trains to catch, telegraphs and telephones were unknown, there was little speculation, and of the fever of the Stock Exchange they were almost entirely ignorant. Those engaged in trade lived, as a rule, over their place of business, and began work early in the morning, finishing much later than our merchants do. Then long letters were written, for a man had a long day before him, and not too much to do. Merchants did not make the colossal fortunes of modern times, but they plodded on, and amassed a competence after a life's work, which was not too hard, were contented with their lots, and were certainly as happy as we are.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.