The year is 1902, one hundred years ago ... what a
difference a century makes. Here are the U.S. statistics for 1902.
The average life expectancy in the US was forty-seven (47).
Only 14 Percent of the homes in the US had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
There were only 8,000 cars in the US and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated
than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the
21st most populous state in the Union.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
The average wage in the US was 22 cents an hour.
The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year. A competent
accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a
veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer
about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the US took place at home.
v
Ninety percent of all US physicians had no college education. Instead, they
attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by
the government as "substandard."
Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee cost
fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks
for shampoo.
The five leading causes of death in the US were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart diseasev
5. Stroke Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the
country for any reason.
The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii and
Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was 30.
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented.
There were no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
One in ten US adults couldn't read or write.
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at
corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the
complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and the
bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
Eighteen percent of households in the US had at least one full-time servant
or domestic.
There were only about 230 reported murders in the entire US.
Well, here we are in 2002. Wonder what it will be like 100 years from
now....
--Author unknown; found circulating the Web via email.
Dolly had never been so low. First she had been shipped to this run-down
out-of-the-way toy store where a leaking roof had allowed her bright blue
box to be stained. Then that idiot teenage clerk had put her on the very
bottom shelf where several younger children had used her to dust the dirty
floor. And -- now the insult of all insults for toys, she found her price
tags rudely mark through with a big black marker and she was placed on the
half off table. To make things worse, it was 4 p.m. Christmas Eve and the
store closed at five. Nothing worse could happen to a toy than to remain
alone in an empty store Christmas Day. Dolly was depressed.
It hadn't been that way to start. She could remember the excitement of
receiving her bright blue dress at the factory. The wonder of being placed
in the colorful box and all the joy of anticipation that she and all the
other dolls felt when they were boxed for shipment. Yes! Dolly just knew she
would be in the arms of some little girl Christmas day and the two of them
would be best friends for life. Yes, she was going to be one of those rare
dolls that got stored away in a hope chest and cared for into the next
generation. Who knew, she might be a collectable? One of those special dolls
stored in a glass case and displayed in the "living room."
Now she just hoped that someone would buy her. She felt so useless. She
never knew the world could be so lonely. All she ever wanted was to be
loved.
Miss. No Name was nineteen. She stood before us caught in the act of
stealing. She was plain, thin, nothing to really look at. She was dressed in
the clothing of her trade. The only trade left for a girl of no out-standing
qualities with a two hundred-dollar a day habit. She said nothing as the
manager went through his normal spill about calling the police and how he
ought to throw her in jail. They were vain words falling deafly on the ears
of girl that had no idea where she was going to spend the night and cared
less.
It was then, I noticed that Miss. No Name was stained -- Scars and sores on
her arms trying to cover the needle tracks. The only question I asked that
day received the only answer Miss No Name gave.
"Why do you do that?" I asked.
"Because no one loves me. I just want someone to love me."
Dolly spent Christmas Day with the rest of the "loser" toys in the mark down
bin. No little girl would love her this Christmas Day. But, she still held
onto a small ray of hope that perhaps she would share a birthday with some
little girl the next year.
Even that hope faded. After sitting on the 70% off table for three weeks,
the storekeeper, none to gently, tossed her into the trash.
One week after my brief encounter with Miss No Name, I saw her again. She
was being carried, not too gently, from a run down Chicago apartment for a
free ride to the Cook County morgue. Discarded like a marked-down doll. She
never knew that someone loved her. As I stood there a children's song ran
through my mind:
Jesus loves the little children,
All the little Children of the World;
Red and yellow,
Black and White
Jesus loves the little of the World.
I cried. Thirty years later, I still do. Dolly was fiction -- a toy. Miss No
Name was not. God forgive us for we love and care for our toys better than
we do people.
To God Be The Glory! Pastor Jim
--"O Dolly, How I Love You," by Pastor Jim Barr. Reprinted with permission of Net 153
Publications.
A Fun, Faith 'n Funny Bone Feature 
