We need to remind ourselves once in a while that the people who lived in our towns and cities in generations past were not better behaved and that there was no golden age other than the one we live in. As today's proof, I give you a tidbit located in today's "From The Archives" column in the Globe and Mail of local events circa 1908:

100 YEARS AGO:

The Globe reported that a special train returning to Westport, Ont., with the Newboro' and Athens hockey teams - who had played exhibition games in Brockville - and 250 supporters was the scene of a continuous melee until Athens was reached. Bottles flew, windows were smashed, four passengers were suffering from fractured noses, while a Newboro' man was nursing a badly lacerated thumb, bitten by one of the fighters. Wholesale prosecutions were likely to follow....

The age of elegance, eastern Ontario style.