It's been a hard season: backbreaking shoveling, $3-per-gallon gas, potholes, frost heaves, you name it. The news out of Washington is never good. The presidential primaries refuse to end. It's enough to make you wistful for the good old days.

Now it turns out the good old days weren't always so good.

A woman in Illinois recently discovered a cache of old Concord newspapers in her home and sent them our way. Amid the many advertisements for liver pills and rheumatism cures, the news of the day was often troubling. As described by our Monitor predecessors, 19th-century New Hampshire was a strange combination of freak accidents, weirdo crime, awful ailments and corrupt politics. Why, just consider:

In October 1891, Squire Rainsford of Chichester snagged his finger in the cogs of a haycutter. In December 1887, Thomas Connor of Whitefield was severely wounded in the arm by a revolver bullet while riding a train. Where the shot came from is a mystery. That same day, a 16-year-old Concord boy lost part of his hand in a nailing machine at a shoe factory.

Two years later, Mrs. Finley R. Butterfield, wife of the well-known Concord & Montreal railroad conductor, set her heavy woolen dress on fire while cooking. "In a moment," the paper said, "she was enveloped." A boarder threw the woman to the floor and smothered the flames with his coat. Yikes.

Readers learned about Amos J. Jenness, an aged citizen of Rye, who was knocked down and robbed of $12.

They read about a group of Italian men in Exeter, sentenced to 30 days in jail for assault with intent to kill. And they heard about a special police patrol in Goffstown. "The thieving of boys from Manchester has gone about far enough," the newspaper said.

In Northwood that same month, Clarence Nutter was charged with stealing several head of cattle from the pasture of TJ Smith of Pittsfield. Nutter, it seems, was a notorious rustler. The year before, he stole and slaughtered two other men's animals, pocketing the money from the meat sales.

Houses, businesses and even boats burst into flames with strange regularity.

In the fall of 1891, fire took two large steamers on Lake Winnipesaukee (spelled Winnepiseogee), leaving just 50 remaining steamships on the lake.

And the papers were full of accounts of horrible illness: Mr. L.W. Fling of Bristol was confined to his house in late 1887 with a severe attack of erysipelas. A baby boy in Concord came down with typhoid pneumonia. A neighbor contracted cerebral meningitis.

Of course, some ailments sound dubious to 21st-century ears. One advertiser claimed to have the perfect cure for "piophobia," a stomach malady caused by eating too much pie. "This discomfort or distress is nothing more than the protest of our digestive organs against hog's grease," the ad said, urging readers to try Cottolene, a vegetable substitute for lard.

The late 19th century was a poor time to find housing in Concord. "Good tenements continue to be scarce, and prices went up still higher about a week ago," the Monitor lamented in 1891.

Concord children were subjected to Miss Devoll's etiquette classes on Saturday afternoons. Their parents endured anti-drinking lectures - from temperance groups and even the newspaper.

To be sure, the news wasn't uniformly grim. A reader could score a pair of heavy fleeced underwear for just 97 cents at the Standard Clothing Co. on North Main Street. Heck, the Monitor was a bargain at 2 cents. And Mrs. Craddock, a clairvoyant, had set up a promising practice at 55 S. State St.