Better Than Dumbbells

1895

Dyspeptics may be interested in the experiment of a man living on Erie street. Being confined to his office most of the day and having little exercise of any kind, his system got badly out of order. For some two months past he has been spending a half hour every evening in lying on his back on the floor and tossing his lusty 2-year-old son back and forth. He says this exercise beats dumbbells, and that is only after an occasional immoderate meal time he is reminded that he has a stomach. — Chicago Tribune.


A Great Scheme

"I never talk about the club to my wife."
"I do. I speak of it in glowing terms and then stay at home occasionally. So my wife thinks there isn't a more self sacrificing husband in the world." — Kate Field's Washington.


It Was Easy to Live Then

Living was cheap in the old Roman days. A night's lodgings at an inn could be had for about 4 cents. A pound of figs could be bought for 2 cents, and a fine, long cloak was purchasable at the extremely low figure of 20 cents.


Cairo Museum

The Cairo museum has seven brooms used by ancient Egyptian women. They are made of straw and closely resemble the same articles in use today, save that the handles are not long enough for purposes of domestic discipline.

Even or Odd

1910

This game is the most ancient, perhaps, that we know. The children who played in the streets of Athens and in the Roman Forum in early ages, knew and loved it, and little children find amusement in it still. It is played in this manner: One child hides in her hand a few beans, nuts, or just bits of paper, and asks her companion to guess if they are odd or even.

If the playfellow guesses odd and on opening her hand the other displays an odd number, she forfeits the articles to the guesser, who hides them in her turn. But if the guess is odd and the number even, the guesser pays a forfeit and the first hider retains the beans, etc. The guess must be right to win.

Hannibal In Italy

1910

Hannibal entered northern Italy in the year 218 B. C., and gained during that year the two victories of Ticinus and Trebia, both in Cisalpine Gaul. The next year he advanced farther south and defeated the Romans at Trasymenus, and the year following, having proceeded farther south, he inflicted upon them the terrible defeat of Cannae, at which time his ascendancy attained its maximum. He remained for 13 years longer, but gained no more decisive victories. He was finally recalled by the authorities at Carthage, which had never given him anything like a decent support.

Peculiar Possessions and Collections

1900

Many people make collections of articles more or less interesting, but possibly few go in for such bulky objects as those chosen by a gentleman of Pontefract, in the north of England. Old doors are the object of his desire and he has a most curious collection. His doors come from old houses, castles and abbeys that have some historical interest. Household Words is responsible for the statement that not long ago he offered as much as five thousand dollars for a door through which, during the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette, Charlotte Corday, Danton and Robespierre passed to the guillotine.

Not quite as interesting in a general sense, but in all probability of quite as much interest to the collector, was a curious collection of corks owned by a Frenchman who died a few years ago at Paris. A fairly good history of his life was to be read on these corks, for he saved every one drawn for the delectation of himself or his friends, and on each he inscribed the date and particular occasion upon which the bottle was opened.

Probably nobody of to-day has a strong desire to bring together a great variety of teas and snuffs. Lord Petersham, however, a noted dandy in his day, had a hobby for collecting various kinds of tea and snuff. All round his sitting-room were shelves, on the one side laden with canisters of Souchong, Bohea, Congou, Pekoe, Russian and other teas, and on the other bearing handsome jars containing every kind of snuff the collector could lay his hands on.

Queen Margherita of Italy is the owner of a curious collection, one that has in it the interest of association. It comprises the foot- and head-gear of royal and imperial personages of different periods. It is said to embrace a sandal worn by the tyrant Nero, a pair of white slippers which belonged to Mary Queen of Scots, shoes worn by Queen Anne and the Empress Josephine, and gloves that were once the property of Marie Antoinette. — Youth's Companion.

Old Ways of Keeping Time

1910

Devices That Were Adopted by the Egyptians, Romans and Early English People

As far back as history will take us we find that there was always some crude means of reckoning time. The clock is, of course, a comparatively modern invention, the first mechanical ones that would keep the time even approximately having been made in 1250 A.D.

The early Egyptians divided the day and night each into 12 hours, a custom adopted by the Jews or Greeks probably from the Babylonians.

The day is said to have been first divided into hours in 293 B.C., when a sun dial was erected in the temple of Quirinus at Rome. As early as 158 B.C. the time was called in the streets of Rome by regular public criers.

In the early history of England we are told that the people found a means of measuring time by the use of wax candles. It was reckoned that three inches of candle would last an even hour.

Among most of the nations of the north day began at sunrise, while among the Athenians and Jews it began at sunset. With the ancient Romans it began, as it does with us, at midnight.

Ancient Coin Recalls Old Rome

1919

2,000 Years Old — Surpassing Historic Interest

A coin 2,000 years old, which may have reposed in the treasure box of a Roman senator, passed from hand to hand in the dice games of members of the Roman imperial guard, been tossed to the rubble by a patrician as he passed through the streets on his way to the baths, or thrown to a victorious gladiator by one of the vestal virgins, now is in the possession of Arthur S. Hibler, United States immigrant inspector at New Orleans. On its way to Mexico, where it was obtained by its present owner, the coin may have been carried as a keepsake by one of the Spanish conquerors and exchanged for the gold and jewels of the Aztecs. Two thousand years afford ample time to pass through a few adventures.

The coin is valued by Mr. Hibler, not only for its age, but for the queer history attached to his gaining possession of it. While he claims he is not superstitious, he admits he regards the coin as a good luck talisman. The piece was sold to him by a Mexican, who wished to cross the border at Brownsville, Tex., and had not enough money for his toll. To pay his way across the international bridge he offered the coin with several others to Mr. Hibler, asserting that it had a strange significance and a blessing attached to it. It had been given him, he said, by the mother of a member of Villa's band, who had been murdered in a cafe brawl. As he lay dying, he had begged the man to take a handkerchief, stained with his life blood, to his mother. The Mexican had sworn to fulfill the trust, and delivered the handkerchief to the old woman. She opened the corner of the handkerchief, which was knotted tightly, and took out several coins. Then she retired into an inner room and, returned, placed a small silvery disk in the messenger's hand, saying it was a talisman that would mean much to its possessor.

The coin is small and white, resembling a modern United States dime in size and color. On its front is a relief of a Roman emperor, with the inscription: "Domitian VIII, Imp. Caesar," and several other characters which are indistinguishable. On the reverse side is what seems to be a reproduction of the temple erected in Jerusalem by Solomon. It is worn thin by the touch of the millions of hands in which it must have rested.

"I have no doubt that it is genuine," Mr. Hibler said. "But how did it come into the possession of the Villista bandit? Well — quien sabe?"

Old Portage Railroad Line

Pennsylvania, 1905

For some time prior to 1800 travel across Pennsylvania had been in canoes and in river barges propelled by poles or along the shores of rivers by horse and foot and by intervening portages on Indian trails, connecting points on the different rivers. The Philadelphia-Pittsburg national pike was built upon such a substantial basis that wherever undisturbed one still finds the gracefully modeled arches of solid masonry almost intact, after more than a century has passed. The completion of the Old Portage railroad by the state of Pennsylvania in 1834 put an end to the time-honored "coach and six," with the many picturesque and commodious inns and taverns along the line of this broad macadamized toll road, which with its substantial construction was, in point of endurance, second only to the Roman military roads of Great Britain.

This Old Portage road was constructed from material brought from England. The British government sent over experienced engineers to instruct the Americans in the running of the stationary steam engines used upon the inclined planes of the road in the Allegheny mountains. The railroad's highest point was about 2,700 feet above sea level; being only 200 feet lower than the neighboring hill, which is the highest point of the Allegheny mountains in Pennsylvania. The road consisted of ten planes, five of which were on either side of the mountain, and intervening levels. In 1835 the canalboats were so constructed that they could be taken in sections and hauled over the mountain on flat cars, without disturbing their cargoes. The rails were secured to stone sleepers twenty inches square, which were sunk in the ground.

On the Old Portage road the best time for the forty miles between Hollidaysburg and Johnstown was twelve hours. Express trains on the Pennsylvania railroad now run a closely parallel distance over the Allegheny mountains in a trifle over one hour. The passenger traffic on the road in those days was usually limited to one car each way a day, with a capacity of thirty passengers.

In 1854 the Pennsylvania Railroad company bought the Portage road from the state of Pennsylvania. Common rumor says that at this time the state legislature was "greased" and that not a cent of the $47,000,000 which was to have been paid for the road was ever received into the treasury of Pennsylvania.

Clothing Makes the Man

1905

Historical Personages Stripped of Accustomed Raiment Seem Unreal

A meeting of the Custom Cutters' Association of America was held in Philadelphia the other day. J. O. Madison of New York, in explaining the part that clothes play in making the man, said:

"An undraped Caesar never could have quelled rebellion with a speech, nor could, undressed, our great Washington have awed his friends with his impressive dignity. What do we know of Moses, not knowing how he was dressed? And how much greater would our interest be in Aristotle if we knew the kind of clothes he was in the habit of wearing?

"What do we know of Nero or of Judas, ignorant, as we are, of what their clothes were like? And if we knew how St Patrick clothed himself how much more feelingly would the Christian world do reverence to his memory. We know that Adam wore a fig leaf, and he seems, because of this historic fact, more real than if we knew him only as the man whose appetite for apples made tailoring necessary."

What "Decimated" Means

1915

The French communique described the attacking Germans east of Rheims as having been "decimated." Many persons wonder whether the word was used in its strict sense, or in the looser fashion now too common, as signifying very heavy loss.

"Decimated" is, in fact, a much weaker word than many who employ it realize. It means only the loss of one in ten. The original "decimation" was the Roman military punishment of a number of soldiers who had been guilty of some joint crime. One-tenth were chosen by lot to be punished with death or some other penalty, the rest getting off with the substitution of barley for wheat in their rations.

That the punishment was not common in early Rome is shown by the fact that the verb "decimare" is post-Augustan; but an instance of the practice occurs as early as 470 B. C.


Rabbits Adopted By a Motherly Cat

1905

Glen Mallory of Athens, New York state, has a handsome cat which has mothered eight baby rabbits. She had recently raised a number of kittens, having had them, in a comfortable box in the cellar of the house.

When they were weaned and given away the cat, which has long been a great favorite in the house, owing to its sagacity, was restless and ill at ease. A few days ago she disappeared and in a couple of days returned. When she was found there were in the nest eight little bunnies, apparently well contented with the great care which she bestowed upon them.

Where she got them is a mystery, and her owner is curious to know whether she stole them from the nest of some rabbit or whether their own mother was recently bagged by some enterprising hunter.

The Universal Art

1910

In a splendid series of matinees extending over two weeks, Prof. William P. Jones danced the whole of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

The first two colonies were danced in slow time, to the accompaniment of two flutes and a lyre. The poses were statuesque rather than graceful, and the gestures had to them a great deal of the oratorical.

But, beginning with the story of the barbarian invasions in the third volume, Professor Jones' interpretation took on a fury that was almost bacchantic. The sack of Rome by the Vandals in the year 451 was pictured in a veritable tempest of gyrations, leaps and somersaults. The subtle and hidden meanings of the text called for all the resources of the professor's eloquent legs, arms, shoulders, lips and eyes.

A certain obscure passage in life of Attila the Hun, which had long puzzled the scholars, was for the first time made clear to the average man when Professor Jones, standing on one foot, whirled around rapidly in one direction for five minutes, and then instantly reversing himself spun around for ten minutes in the opposite direction.

In the ballroom of the Hotel Taftoftia, during Christmas week, William K. Spriggs, Ph. D., held a number of fashionable audiences spellbound with his marvelous lucid dances in euclid and algebra up to quadratics. Perhaps the very acme of the terpsichorean art was attained in the masterly fluency of body and limbs with which Mr. Spriggs demonstrated that the sum of the angles in any triangle is equal to two right angles. — Simeon Strunsky, in Harper's Weekly.

Eating Parrots, Albatross, Weeds, Acorns

1896

Food Can Be Almost Anything

Few of us, or, indeed, of any people, would think of eating parrots, especially if anything else could be gotten, yet the Romans esteemed them for the table, the Boston Traveller writes.

Cranes are sometimes used for food.

The American ostrich, of South America, is eaten, both flesh and eggs. The eggs of the African ostrich are used, and the flesh, when the bird is young.

The albatross, largest and strongest of birds, produces eggs that are edible.

There is a weed in this country, much cursed by all who have to do with the soil and its products, called a vulgar phrase "pussly." No one in this country would think of eating it, yet this foe of farmers and gardeners is used as a salad in Europe and Egypt.

Acorns in this country are put to no use, unless it be for swine; but in Saxon times "mast" was valued not only for herds, but for man. In times of dearth acorns were boiled and eaten by the poor in England and in France, as one species is still in Southern Europe.

Whales are no longer eaten by civilized men, but in the thirteenth century their tongues were held in great esteem in parts of Europe. Whales are now, with seals and walruses, the chief food of many inhabitants of the Arctic regions. Of the narwhal the Greenlanders eat flesh, fat and skin.

Isinglass is a strange food; it is a gelatin prepared from the air bladders of different kinds of fish from large rivers that flow into the North and Caspian Seas.

Poisoning as a Profession

1916

Use of Deadly Gases Recalls Politics of the Dark Age Statemen and Diplomats

It is interesting today, when the opposing armies are "removing" their opponents en bloc by the use of poisonous vapors, to recall the horror evoked by the deeds of poisoners in the past. The names of the Borgias and the Medici are to this day held up to the detestation of mankind. Yet these and their like only poisoned individuals; the fighting forces today are compelled to endeavor to poison entire armies!

Their wholesale methods will doubtless go to enrich the annals of historical poisoning. For poison has played a great part in history. The employment of poison by the ancients is graphically and terribly illustrated in the deaths of Socrates, Demosthenes, Hannibal and Cleopatra, while in the reign of Artaxerxes II. (Memnon), B.C. 405-350, Phrysa poisoned the Queen Statira by cutting food with a knife poisoned on one side.

In the early part of the Christian era numberless professional poisoners arose, and for a long time exercised their trade with impunity. "Poisoning," says a well known authority, "was so much in use as a political engine that Agrippina (A.D. 26) refused to eat of some apples offered her at table by her father-in-law, Tiberius." It is a curious fact that Agrippina, while refusing to partake of these apples from her fear of being poisoned, was herself guilty of the poisoning of Claudius; but poetic justice was meted out to her in the death (by poison) of her son, Britannicus.

It was at this time, too, that the infamous Locusta flourished. She is said to have supplied, with suitable directions, the poison by which Agrippina got rid of Claudius; and she was also the principal agent in the preparation of the poison that was administered to Britannicus by order of his brother Nero.

"It was the custom of the Romans to drink hot water," says Mr. Wynter Blythe, "a draught nauseous enough to us, but, from fashion or habit, considered by them a luxury. And as no two men's tastes are alike, great skill was shown by the slaves in bringing the water to exactly that degree of heat which their respective masters found agreeable.

"A slave brings water to Britannicus; it is too hot; Britannicus refuses it. The slave adds cold water, and it is this cold water that is supposed to have been poisoned. In any case, Britannicus died, and extraordinary lividity spread over the corpse, which they attempted to conceal by painting the face."

There has come down to us a curious document, said to have been drawn out by Charles de Mauvais, King of Navarre, which shows how arsenic was much favored as a political weapon by crowned heads in the fourteenth century. It is a commission of murder given to a certain Wouderton.

"Go thou to Paris. Thou canst do great service if thou wilt. Do what I tell thee. I will reward thee well. Thou shall do thus: There is a thing which is called sublime arsenic. If a man eat a bit the size of a pea he will never survive. Thou wilt find it in Pampeluna, Bordeaux, Bayonne, and in all good towns through which thou will pass, at the apothecaries' shops.

"Take it and powder it; and when thou shalt be in the house of the king, and of Valois, his brother, the Dukes of Berry, Burgundy and Bourbon, draw near and betake this to the kitchen, to the larder, to the cellar, and in other places where thy point can be best gained. Put the powder in the soups, meats or wines, provided that thou canst do it secretly. Otherwise do it not."

Wouderton, failing to accomplish his task, was detected and executed in 1384.

No better example of this dread in which poisoners were held can be quoted than the fact that at so late a period as the reign of Henry VII extraordinary precautions were thought necessary for preserving the life of the infant heir. It was ordained that no person, of whatsoever rank, except the regular attendants in the nursery, were to approach the cradle, except with an order from the king's hand. Moreover, everything intended for the royal infant was boiled, to prevent all risk of poison as far as possible.

One of the more recent instances of political poisoning is that of the Sultan Abdul-Aziz, who died May 30, 1876. By reason of his advanced ideas he was forced to abdicate the throne, and four days later the unhappy sultan was found dead, it is almost certain by foul play. — From London Answers.

Eagle Always an Emblem

1918

From Mythological Times the Monarch of the Air Has Been Chosen as Representative of Power

In mythology the eagle usually represents the sun. The great mythical eagle of India, the Garuda, is the bearer of the god Vishnu, victorious by his brightness over all demons. In Scandinavian mythology the eagle is a gloomy figure, assumed by demons of darkness or by Odin himself, concealed in the gloomy night or in wind swept clouds. The storm giant Hrasweigr sits in the form of an eagle at the extremity of heaven and blows blasts over all people and on the great tree Yggdrasil sits an eagle observing everything that happens. When Zeus was preparing for his struggle with the Titans the eagle brought him a thunderbolt, whereupon the god took the bird for his emblem.

It naturally became the emblem of nations after its long use in mythology. Ptolemy Soter made it the emblem of the Egyptian kingdom. In the Roman story the eagle was the herald to Tarquinus of his royal power, and it was one of the most important insignia of the republic, and was also assumed by the emperors, and adopted into medieval heraldry after the time of Charlemagne.


Keeping the Faith

A man returning from Philadelphia tells of a ragged newsboy, who, after his papers were all sold, still stood near Independence hall lustily shouting the news of Germany's surrender, "I'm just a-doin' what the Liberty bell would do if it could," explained the little patriot.


There is no graduating from the school of experience.

The Water Supply of Rome

1874

In the course of a lecture on Roman antiquities, delivered at the Royal Institution, London, Mr. J. H. Parker said: The celebrated Aqua Marcia has recently been again brought into Rome, and is rapidly coming into use, being considered the finest drinking water in the world, always cool even in the hottest weather. On the river Anio itself, where a fine cascade falls over the rock, there is a deep rocky gorge; and here great engineering works were made in the time of Claudius and Nero.

A great wall, 12 feet thick, built of large blocks of stone, was erected across the river at the lower part of the gorge, forming a dam of 100 feet high and 12 feet thick, to enclose a portion, perhaps 100 yards long, between the dam and the natural cascade; the water was made to fall over the dam, which thus became the cascade; but at one end of it a specus was made below the level of the surface of the water, so that the water must always flow through that specus, and consequently through Rome, before any of it could fall over the cascade.

This magnificent and most useful piece of engineering continued in use for centuries. It was destroyed in the fourteenth century by an ignorant monk, who was annoyed by a temporary flood in the upper country, which overflowed the meadows near his monastery, and, to relieve that, he made a hole at the bottom of the great dam. The force of the water soon carried all before it, and caused a great flood over all the lower country, even to the Tiber, and did immense mischief — even the walls of Rome were injured.

Mr. Parker said that he had not time to describe the thermae, or great public baths, to supply which most of the aqueducts were made, but he could not conclude without mentioning that the opinion, commonly entertained, that the ancient Romans were ignorant of the fact that water will rise to its level, is entirely a popular delusion. At every half mile of the aqueducts, on their course from the foot of the hills to Rome, each aqueduct forms an angle, to break the force of the water, and at that angle a great reservoir is made, with a piscina or filtering place at one end. Each piscina consists of four vaulted chambers, two above and two below. The water enters into the top of the first upper chamber; it then falls through a hole in the vault into the first lower chamber, then passes through small holes in the intermediate wall into the second lower chamber, then rises again through a hole in the vault into the second upper chamber, and then follows its course at the same level as it originally entered, depositing its mud in the lower chamber as it passed. Each piscina is therefore made upon the principle of water finding its level.

They used the large stone specus, or aqueducts, instead of ordinary pipes, because they could not depend either upon their leaden pipes or their terra cotta pipes to resist the force of such a stream of water. Nothing but the concrete stone was strong enough. At the present time, the cast iron pipes of the new company are bursting every day in the streets of Rome to such an extent that the managers of the company fear that the expense will be ruinous to them. This seems to show that the old Romans were better engineers than we are.

Concerning Beds, Mattresses in Days of Old

1874

During all ages, from the earliest times, men have displayed their invention in designing beds which should gratify their natural love for comfort, for elegance, and for luxury. In the prehistoric times the dwellers in the caves most probably followed the suggestion given them by the animals which they drove out from their rocky dens, in this early stage of the "struggle for existence," and made their beds of leaves. From this condition to providing skins for the coverings of their couches, was a great advance, and with their increasing ability to dominate their surrounding conditions, and provide the materials for gratifying their natural as well as artificial wants, this step was but the first in a long course of invention and improvement applied to beds.

Among the Romans and the Greeks, as well as the other nations of antiquity, such an appliance as a mattress was unknown. They made their beds upon couches of wood, which were covered with skins, furs, woolen and other stuffs. Their luxury in beds consisted only in using more expensive coverings, replacing a sheep's skin by a tiger's or substituting for a rough woolen blanket one of finer texture, or a shawl of silk embroidered in gold and silver thread. These improvements, or those consisting in replacing the wooden bench which formed their support with one of bronze, or even of gold or silver, was really only a display of greater wealth, but could not be considered in these days an advance towards securing the advantages of a comfortable, luxurious, and healthy bed.

In the early period of modern history, beds were almost universally, in Europe, nothing but bundles of straw. As late in England as the times of Queen Elizabeth, when no carpets were used, and the floor was strewn with rushes, the beds were hardly anything better, and a wooden bench, or any rude framework which lifted the bed above the floor, was a luxury. Erasmus, in his letters, describes the social condition of the people during the reign of Henry VIII, and was disgusted at the state of the floors. The rushes, he says, were so seldom changed, and became so damp, that the feet were constantly kept wet, and thence colds and consumption were quite common.

In the dining-rooms, he speaks of the filth collected on the floor among the rushes; the bits of meat and bones thrown to the dogs, who fought around the guests' legs for them; the beer and wine emptied upon the floor; the slices of bread, used as plates for eating their meat on, and then thrown aside, altogether giving us no very high conception of the neatness and fine breeding of the time.

From Delaroche's fine picture of "The Death of Queen Elizabeth," an accurate idea can be gained of the beds of royalty at this period, and consequently those of the common people can be imagined. By a careful study of the times, and from all the contemporary evidence bearing upon this point, Delaroche was enabled to reproduce the scene with a truthful accuracy of detail. The queen is reposing upon a bed formed by spreading cloths upon the floor. She is covered with richly embroidered spreads of velvet, bordered with golden fringe. The moment chosen is when she is upbraiding the Countess of Nottingham for keeping back the ring Essex had sent to his royal mistress just before his execution. The queen herself is gorgeously attired, as was her constant custom, but the comparison between the brilliant coverings of the bed and its position, one which now would be considered as in the dirt, affords an admirable picture of the partial civilization of the times, with its splendor of display and its want of the simplest decencies of the present.

Mattresses were first made of straw or wool, then moss came to be used, and feathers, and finally curled hair. The trouble with all mattresses of these materials is, that they become by use matted and hard, and have to be remade. Besides, too, all of these materials have a greater or a less tendency to retain the bodily exhalations, and in all public places, such as hotels, hospitals, and other institutions where the beds are used in turn by a number of different persons, the danger of contagion, and the difficulty in any case of keeping the beds hygienically clean and pure, according to the demands of the present medical standard, is very great, if not impossible.

Advertising in Olden Times

1878

Macademized roads, in all save the name, were known in the Roman dominions 200 years before the Christian era, were not merely limited to the vicinity of the capital, but were laid down in every province that succumbed to the valor of the Republican arms.

At an equally early age, the Roman Senate, among various other decrees relating to the order and discipline to be observed in the city, enacted that men should give place to women in the streets, and leave them the unmolested use of the smooth line of pavement, which every house-owner had to maintain in good condition in front of his own residence.

Colossal sign-boards announced to the passers-by the business followed in the houses; while in time of Plautus, notices of lost and found objects were displayed on placards written in letters a cubit long; and gladiatorial games, races, shows and theatrical exhibitions, were made public by huge boards displaying colored representations of some of the most striking scenes or sights to be exhibited. The walls, doors, and palings were covered with these rude advertisements, which seemed generally to have been drawn in some bright color on a black red ground.

Although the Romans, like other ancient nations, were ignorant of printing as applied to the multiplication of books, they were familiar with the use of printing type, which their porters used for stamping names on their vases; and we are told that the Emperor Justinian, when he wished to append his signature to a public document, had recourse to a small wooden tablet, on which the letters of his name were cut, which he traced on the paper by following with the point of his style pen the various contours of the carving.

But perhaps the strangest indication of the fact that most of our assumed discoveries and innovations are mere "rehabilitations," to use a French word, of pre-existing things, is supplied by the suggestion which is ascribed to Plato for the establishment of agencies for marriage, by means of which the qualities of each candidate for matrimony might be made known, and men thus have a better chance of procuring wives suited to their various characters.

The idea seems to have been lost for ages, but not wholly, for it revived in great force about a century ago, when some ingenious German, either from the depths of his own consciousness, or from careful study of Plato's writings, established at Hamburg an office for the transaction of matrimonial affairs, in which advertisements for husbands and wives were always to be seen. There was not the slightest mystery or reserve assumed; and there was great frankness displayed both by the ladies and gentlemen who took part in these negotiations, for we are informed by one advertiser that "she is fifty-nine years of age, and having buried her fourth husband within the previous three weeks, is anxious to meet with a good-looking, healthy young man of twenty-six, as successor to her lamented partners. He need be under no trouble or care about money matters, as she has plenty of both, and will leave him her universal legatee."

A City of Change - Ephesus

1916

Ephesus, Once on the Seacoast, Is Now Located Far Inland

Sir William Ramsay characterizes Ephesus as the "City of Change." And truly it has seen marvelous changes and its inhabitants many removals. In the days of St. Paul and St. John Ephesus was a city of the seacoast; the waters of the Aegean lapped its busy wharves. Now the traveler to Ephesus can scarcely imagine that he is near the sea. To all appearances he is as far away as on one of our inland prairies. The Cayster during all these ages has brought down mud and silt from the mountains until now Ephesus is miles from the seashore. Even in St. John's time the port was kept open only by strenuous effort and constant dredging.

These changes wrought by nature have compelled frequent changes on the part of the inhabitants. The original city was built not far from Ayasolouk and "the whole Ephesian valley was an arm of the sea dotted with rocky islands and bordered by picturesque mountains and wooded promontories," we are told. As the sea receded in the course of the centuries the population moved with it until the Roman city, the city of St. Paul and St. John, was some miles from the original site.

At last this port became impossible and the inhabitants moved farther back, nearer to the site of the more ancient city, where today the few inhabitants that still remain are found.

—Stevens Point Daily Journal, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, July 29, 1916, page 3.

The Romans the First to Use Shorthand

1920

Roman Shorthand

The Romans were the first to use shorthand. They used it throughout the first century, B. C., continuing its practice for at least four centuries. Marcus Tulllus Tiro, the secretary and librarian for Cicero, was the pioneer of Roman shorthand.


Better Than Medicine

Remember that medicine is, for most part, nothing but the substitute of exercise and right thinking. And it does not take a great deal of either right thinking or fresh air to enable you to throw off any ordinary symptom of illness. All that is necessary is for you to hold in your mind the thought that you are both healthy and cheerful.


Watch the Exhaust

A government bulletin is authority for the statement that the greatest single factor in the operation of the steam plant is the way in which the exhaust steam problem is handled.


Bonaparte's Short Career

In 1802, on August 2, Napoleon Bonaparte was declared consul of France for life. Thirteen years to the day, the convention between the representatives of Great Britain, Prussia, Austria and Russia declared Bonaparte, then emperor of the French, to be a prisoner of the allies and entrusted Great Britain with his custody.


Of Course Paul Wasn't Mad

Paul and Billy live in the country. There are two girls in the family also. Their aunts in town are fond of sending them things. One package contained nothing for Paul or Billy. Paul wrote to his grandmother: "What's the matter with my aunts? They sent a package out here and there wasn't a thing for Billy or me in it, and Billy's pretty mad about it."

—Bedford Gazette, Bedford, Pennsylvania, January 2, 1920, page 7.

The Romans Liked Red Hair, Nobody Else

1912

RED HAIR ALWAYS DISLIKED

With the Exception of the Romans, Ancient Peoples Had Strong Aversion to It

Red is the fashionable color of woman's hair just now, but in many periods and countries to have red hair meant to test the depths of misfortune, even of death.

Prejudice against red hair runs back even to Egyptian times, for in that land of decided opinions and strong prejudices it was the custom to burn alive some unfortunate individual cursed with red hair, so it was decidedly uncomfortable to have red hair in Egypt, as no one knew whose turn would come next.

That the Chinese shared this prejudice against red hair is proved by their epithet for the English, whom they called "red-haired barbarians" or "red-haired devils."

The great exception to this rule among ancient nations is the Romans, for since the time of Nero they have praised red hair in the highest terms. They preferred a dark red, almost brown, such as we term auburn, and modern Romans share this liking. It is said that among the patrician families of Rome and Florence there is an abnormally large number of red-haired women. Modern Greeks share this predilection with the Romans and they heighten the reddish effect of the hair by wearing dull gold ornaments.

One of the most frequent causes of the prejudice against red hair in Christian countries undoubtedly goes back to the tradition that Judas, the betrayer of Jesus, had red hair, and most of the artists paint him thus. Shakespeare refers to this in "As You Like It," when Rosalind says of Orlando, "His very hair is of the dissembling color," and Celia answers: "Something browner than Judas."

The Brahmins were forbidden to marry red-haired women and as has been said: "The populace of most countries, confounding moral with aesthetic impressions, accuse red-haired people of various shortcomings."

Besides the old tradition of Judas having been red-haired aiding to create the prejudice existing in many lands the fact of the feeling against red hair in England is set down to the red-haired Danes, who could not be regarded save as invaders and barbarians.

—The Daily Commonwealth, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, December 17, 1912, page 3.