“Everyone wishes to live long yet no one wants to grow old.” Someone has made an assertion something like the above; but we don’t remember who the author is. Yes; age has its terrors for the young, and we are led to believe this is because the young know nothing about age. All stages of life have their pleasures, and as we enter upon this aeon of our existence, as though we had been educated for this particular stage. An in reality we have been. I once heard a lady sat, “I don’t want to get old, I dread old age.” And yet this lady is “getting there” all the same, and, to all appearances is experiencing no inconvenience or marked change except that which age implies. There is certainly a pleasure in age, for one who can sit down and look back upon a life well spent from childhood to his present state; few however can do this and anticipate the final earthly change with pleasure. We have seen such persons. The work has known no better. Persons who all their lives have lived in comparative poverty and enjoyed life, and in their declining years stripped of health and some of their natural senses, yet have had the ecstasy of youth in being when their looked back with rapture upon their past lives, and anticipated a fruition yet to come. This ecstatic state of being, in the aged, is we surmise brought about only by happy memory, and a “power that is higher than I.” Robert Browning has written:

Grow old along with me!
The last of life for which the first was made;
Our times are in his hand.
Who said a whole I planned;
Youth shown but half; trust God, see all, nor be afraid.[i]

Periodically there is a fad, an inspiration, or a wildness of opinion amongst the people. So we have often thought. A few years ago it was over a constitutional change to the Government of the State[ii]; later the people went wild over the “good road” question. This was a former opinion of ours, but the experience of the last week has somewhat modified our opinion in regard to the “good road” question. There is certainly a need of an improvement in the roads of Broadkiln, not in this “Election District.” The weather has not yet become very hot but the roads in many parts are heavy with sand; so heavy that with even a light wagon travel is slow indeed. It needs something doing to the roads in Broadkiln.. We find that the road overseers are yet at their manner of work; and they have caught an idea from the surveyors’ they have seen somewhere. They have no theodolite[iii], nor surveyor’s apparatus, yet we noticed a company laying off a piece of road getting ready to work on it. One man held up a stick, and another in imitation of an engineer would sight down it, and then drive a stick in the road and so one we don’t know how far. We will however let them do it as they may, so they do it. In these days of heavy hauling the ponderous wagons cut the roads to pieces  and the scorching automobile blows the sand away but not from the naturally sandy yards. Give us the good roads, whether the people go “wild” over them or not.

In coming into town on last Saturday afternoon at about 5.30 o’clock we noticed a very large crowd of persons assembled at the Iron Bridge/ Teams filled the road, and the banks of the river were crowded. We supposed a dog fight was in progress. With difficulty we succeeded in getting through the crowd, and turning back to find the cause we were informed the naphtha launch of the Rev. Charles A. Behringer had been launched a d the people were gathered on the banks of the river to view the beauty. And she is a beauty and reflects much credit on Henry Atkins the architect and builder. Mr. Atkins not only knows how to do good work but he does it. But say, isn’t it strange that such a thing as a little boat no matter how beautiful can kick up such an excitement and draw such a crowd? This gathering represented all phases of society. Our glance at the congregation was but little more than a glance yet in that short time we took in the personnel of the makeup and its representatives were f0orm all parts of the town. Presumably these little episodes in life do an amount of good to the human system. They relieve the ennui of life—and there’s plenty of it in Milton—and awaken us from our inertia.

Miss Lillian Cade, president of the Sussex County Union, will sail from New York on the steamer Celtic on the 20^th inst for Glasgow, Scotland, as delegate to the World’s W. C. T. U. Convention.

It is reported that recently an aged man of town was taken sick and some purgative pellets were obtained for him. As is often the case, these made him sick for a time. “Billy” Robinson, as it is said, with a female coadjutor, analyzed the pellets, and “Billy” pronounced them to contain neutral acid which he said is a deadly poison. What brand of pellets these were we are unable to state, and the neutral acid as a deadly poison has been unknown in this community heretofore.

David Clendaniel is confined in his home with pneumonia at his residence in lower Broadkiln. The colored cemetery near town has been cleared of bramble that was so unsightly in appearance.

The Milton Shirt and Overall Factory has not been quite up to its reputation as a matrimonial […]. The present year as heretofore. There are now over four months of the year gone and only two marriages. “Hope […] asketh the […]“.

Mrs. Marie Christine Neilsen Hopkins, wife of Dr. R. B. Hopkins, will go for a visit to her […] in the Copenhagen, Denmark. On Wednesday the doctor will accompany her to New York where she will take steamer for her former home. […] Winnifred will cross the ocean with her sister.

Elliott & Son have completed the manufacture of cement blocks for S. J. Wilson & Son’s new building. Excavation has been made for the foundation, and the work of building will begin this week.

The rooms of the Palmer Block, low in number, are said to be all rented. The rooms will soon be ready for occupancy. The Mears building is also moving along. The room to be used by W. F. Starkey as a drug store is about ready for the painter. John H. Davidson has nearly completed the building of an annex to the home of Herbert Vincent near town. Benjamin F. Gray has given to W. H. Workman the contract to rebuild and remodel his property on North Union Street.

Mrs. James T. Carey of near town celebrated her 65^th birthday on Tuesday, May 3^rd, on which occasion she was deluged by the ever omnipresent post card. Her relatives and friends remembered her well.

Schooner Sand Snipe, last week delivered a cargo of phosphate material to the Milton Fertilizer Company and loaded with a cargo of clay from the Harrington quarry, for Philadelphia.

Sunday was “Mothers Day,” and the churches of town recognized the fact in a becoming manner.

Schooner Ella A. Call is at Milton Dock ready to be overhauled.

Rev. D. D. Lusk went to Westerly, R. I., on Sunday to officiate at the funeral of a member of his former charge. He returned on Saturday.

Honeysuckles are in bloom and shedding their fragrance on the early morning air.

A copy of the Elwood, Indiana Daily Record of date on Wednesday May 4^th, is before us in which announcement is made of the marriage of John W. Beebe and Mrs. Cordelia Ellis, in that city. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. J. A. Sunwall, of the M. E. Church of that city, and was strictly private. Mr. Beebe is a native of Sussex County who emigrated to the west more than thirty-six years ago. He is more familiarly known to the present generation of Sussex County Delawareans by Prairie Flowers, a volume of poetry, of which he is the author, and which abounds with epics of western history and sentimentality of his boyhood in old Sussex County, Delaware. D. A. C. extends congratulations to the happy couple and the best wishes of the writer will go with them through life.

Captain George A. Goodwin, of the firm of Goodwin Bros. & Conwell, canners, had an attack of neuralgia last week, which prostrated him for several days. He is now better.

The Sussex County Bible Society will meet in Goshen M. E. Church, this town, on Thursday the 19^th inst.

The young people of the M. E. Church will hold a Strawberry festival in School House Hall on Saturday evening, May 14^th.

“Dickey” Reynolds and Mrs. Craig, both of Broadkiln Hundred were united in matrimony on Saturday evening at the M. P. Parsonage, at Harbeson, by the Rev. Benjamin Bryan. May “Dickey” be happy.

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[i] Quotation is from the first stanza of Rabbi Ben Ezra, by Robert Browning (1812 – 1889)

[ii] This may be a reference to the new State Constitution implemented in 1897.  This was the fourth constitution adopted by the State.

[iii] a precision instrument for measuring angles in the horizontal and vertical planes; theodolites are used mainly for surveying applications,