Mexborough & Swinton Times – Saturday 27 December 1913

Review of the Year

Before another issue of the “Times” reaches our readers the old year will have passed over into the twilight of memories. Therefore, it is not inopportune that, standing on the threshold of a new year, we should seek to emulate the pagan god Janus—who gives his name to the first month of the year—by looking with what reverence we can muster over the past, and by peering optimistically into the hazy future. Utopia, alas! still remains but the hallowed vision of inspired poesy, but the van of human evolution runs more smoothly and swiftly than it has ever done; and even in Mexboro’ we have just cause to feel something of the complacency of Longfellow’s blacksmith, in that much has been attempted and something has been done.

Civically the year has been one of progress among the municipalities of the Don Valley. Mexboro’ has seen the advance of many schemes for the betterment of the town, and if all expectations have not been realised, or all our aspirations converted into things substantial, the spirit of progress has been there all the time—a spirit which has moved the Council to think of much that will improve the health and well-being of the town and townspeople—and, after all, good intentions are, at least, the seeds of good actions.

What can be said of Mexboro’ can be said quite as truly of the representatives of the neighbouring townships. Bolton have been the pioneers of a housing scheme which has gone a long way towards the solving of the housing problem in the district, and Wath, too, have been inspired with a zealous desire to promote the interests of the inhabitants of the “Queen of Villages.”

The fight in connection with the Trackless Trams cannot have been altogether barren of good, for an impetus has been given to another scheme which will link up the mining populaces of the Don Valley, and be of mutual advantage.

In ecclesiastical circles the year has been a memorable one, and one of no little activity. It has witnessed the opening of the Salvationists’ citadel, and the transplanting of the tender root of the Free Christians from the unfertility of its old abode into the handsome new church in Adwick Road, where it promises to blossom into a particularly healthy plant. The event of the year, however, has been the farewell visit of His Grace the Archbishop of York, who, in November and December, toured those parishes in his great diocese which will pass from under his direct jurisdiction into the new See of Sheffield. His address at St. George’s Church, Mexboro’, in December, will not soon be forgotten. It was a clarion call to churchpeople, and created a profound impression.

Memories of Cadeby, of course, have ever been with us, and it is with no shallow feeling of thankfulness that we note that in the appended list is recorded no pit disaster in the immediate neighbourhood. On the other hand, on two occasions some of those humble heroes of the mine have received royal recognition, and the nursing sisters have also been honoured. Pleasant task it is, indeed, to record such instances!

So much for the past. Of the future we have little to say. Optimism is no loss; pessimism no gain. So with the hope that the smiles of the goddess Fortune may be evenly distributed, we leave our readers to the digest of what has passed, and wish them for the future—