In the Dock
I am looking at a picture of a man looking at a copy of the Spectator dated July 7, 1832. The paper was one of the contemporary treasures buried in a glass jar under the foundation stone of the Earl Gray dock at Dundee. the home town of Rintoul, the Spectator's first editor. The dock has now been demolished to make way for the Tay road bridge. Fascinating stuff, but I think the old Dundonians would be disappointed if they could see us now, unearthing their little message to posterity, giving it a quick glance and then bash- ing on with the cement-mixing. Capsule-buriers, I am sure, think on a massive time-scale. They are sending a message to a distant age which will have lost its past and will whoop and goggle at a sign from a civilisation long forgotten. Weil ... 1832? It's practically yesterday. As far as news- papers and coins and suchlike are concerned, we know more about the year of the first reform than they did. (Yes I know, I don't, but somebody does.) And nowadays even if we still bury time- capsules under foundation stones, we can't take ourselves seriously. Our grandfathers thought they were building for ever. We know we are building for the demolishers.
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