The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1867-02-27
TAKING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Dumfries last month. on The Good Old
Times" We extract the following pas
sage: :,
"Men did as wonderful intellectual
feats 1000 and 5000 years ago as are
done in the present time. If it be true
that man was only an improved gorilla,
we don't find that he allowed greater
resemblance to it then than now; tor
his own part, he believed there were
more monkeys now than then, and pos
sibly the gorilla might not SO much rep
resent the race from which we sprang
as the destiny to which we are hasten
ing. Abraham, he believed, to be as
thoroughbred gentleman as any IN
the nineteenth century Jacob as good
a man of business as they would ind
on the Liverpool Exchange; while Jo-
seph was a statesman, and Moses leg
islator, worth great deal more IN their
time than all our lords, commons, and
town councils put together.
1--WE think We do all things on
grand scale, and cockney will boast
that the largest theater in London will
hold four thousand people; thirty thou
sand would have scarcely filled the Co
liseum at Rome. St. Georges Hall,
Liverpool, is justly regarded as very
magnificent building, but it was only
reproduction of very little bit OF the
paths of Diocletian, which were nearly
a quarter offs mile square, the whole
structure being a very great deal larger
than our houses of Parliament. Some
moderns said if the people ofthe ancient
times should revisit the earth, they
would be very much astonished. He
had no doubt they would, but he would
be very sorry if they did in case they
only laughed at us. Possibly our grand
fathers who lived in that stupidest OF all
centuries, the eighteenth, would be as
tonished, but not the men of two thou
sand years ago.
ave thought we had made great
progress in military science, but believ-
ed we were at a disadvantage compar-
ed with the ancients. In Rome alone
there were 100000 public baths, and it
never had more than halft population
of London. They had hot, cold and
vapor baths, and something like our
Turkish baths; and, what was better
still, the people constantly used them.
We boosted of our civil engineering,
hut it was questionable lift had advanc-
ed much since the time when the Ro-
mans built their aqueducts, which were
carried over valleys, supported on thou
sands of arches, or tunnelled for miles
through the solid rock, while the great
est scientific skill was required to give
the supply proper grade.
"There was great deal oftalk about
that wonderful triumph of genius, bring
ing the water of Loeb Katrine to Glas-
gov, but the quantity of water deliver
ed to every inhabitant of Rome was ten
times the water supplied to London.
An abundant supply of water was a
special Characteristic of ancient cities.
We often read of the inhabitants of a
beseiged city suffering from hunger, but
rarely, if ever, from thirst. And there
was no oyercrowding. Nineveh con-
tanned 100000 inhabitants, but the pop
ulation of London was, for its area, five
times as dense as that of Nineveh. The
ancients did not allow the dead to be
buried within the walls oftheir cities
a practice only beginning to be abolish
ed with us. In point of cleanliness,
also, they were more careful than we
are. He read the other day of some
people taking cholera from washing the
clothes ofpersons who had died from
that malady. According to the Mosaic
law these clothes should have been bu-
ried. Moses would not allow people to
live in houses that were unhealthy, but
it was no use turning the people out
and allowing the house to stand; he
knew people would live in ii, ifit remain
ed, and so he said: Down with every
stick and stone of it.
In the matter of sewerage. the Ro.
mans were superior to us. The city
was built on arches for the purpose of
complete sewerage, and there yet re
mains sewer in Rome so wide that a
cart loaded with hay might pass
through it. Excellent and well contriv.
ed drains had been discovered in Nine
web and other towns. The refuse OF
the cities was burned in the open plains.
The hand-looms of thirty thousand
years ago produced cloth of as fine
quality, in point of texture, color and
style, as we Can produce; and the Hin
+ docs, and some of the Africans, knew
: the process of manufacturing iron and
steel, which led them to look with con.
tempt, and to reject as rotten, the speci
mems of those metals which we sent
them. In all these points the past
5 compared favorably with the present.
No doubt the present had it.
achievements. 1t had the printing
press and railroads, telegraphs and ex
tensive manufactures. He believed
} that its superiority consisted more il
, the greater power of production, ant
? in the wider diffusion of wealth ant
= knowledge than obtained in the past
+ rather than in the intrinsic excellence
V or beauty, or brilliancy, or depth O
: what it did or achieved
Petersburg Market.