St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1867-05-24
Taking the Nineteenth Century
dOirn q Peg.

The Rev. Hugh Stowell Brown O
Liverpool, gave a lecture in Dumfrie.
last month, on 1.-The Good Old Times. '
We extract the following passage;
Men did as many intellectual feat.
2,OUG and 5000 years ago as are donC
in the present time If it be true thai
man was only an improved gorilla, W,
don't find that he bore greater resem.
blance to If then than now: for his own
part, he believed there were more mon
keys now than then, and possibly the
gorilla might not so much represent the
the race from which we sprang as the
destiny TO which we are fastening
Abraham he believed to be as thorough
bred gentleman as any in the nineteenth
century Jacob as good a man of busi-
ness as they would find on the Liverpool
Exchange; while Joseph was a states
man. and Moses a legislator, worth 4
great deal more in their time than all our
lords, commons, and town councils put
together.
I'VE think We do all things on a
grand scale, and cockney will boast
that the largest theatre in London will
hold four thousand people; thirty thou
sand would scarcely have filled the COLI
scum OF Rome 81. Georges Hall. Liver
pool, isjustly regarded as very nagnifi-
cent building, but it is only a reproduc-
ton OF a very little bit of the baths of
Dlocletlan, which were a quarter Of i
mile square. the whole structure being a
very great deal larger than our House of
Parliament. Some moderns said If the
people OF the ancient times could revisit
the earth, they would be very much
astonlShed. He had no doubt thev would.
hut he would be very sorry if they did,
IN case they should only laugh at us.
Possibly our great grand-fathers. who
lived IN that stupidisi OF all centuries.
the eighteenth, would lie astonishe,l.
but not the nen of two thousand wears
arO.
We thought we had made great pro-
gress IN sanitary science. but he believed
Ne were 1T a disadvantage compared
with the anclemtS. In Rome alone there
were 500, 1000 public baths. and il never
had more than -half the population of
London. They had hot and cold vapor
haths, and something ike cur Turkish
baths: and what was better still. the
people constantly used them. W. boast
e'l OF our civil engineering. but ,it wa-
questionable ii il had advanced much
SINCE the time when the Romans built
aiueducts, which were carried over val
leys, supported ON thousands of arches.
or tunneled for miles through the solid
rock. while the greatest scientific skill
was required 10 give the supply the prop
cr gradc-
There was great talk about that
wonderful triumph of genius. bringing
the wafer OF Loeb katrine 10 Glasgow.
but the quantity OF water delivered 10
every inhabiiant Of Rome was ten times
the water supplied 10 London. An
abundant supply of water was special
characteristic of ancient cities. We
often read Of the inhabitants of a be-
sie"ci city >uiierieg from hunger, but
rarcl =. II ever. from thirst. And there
war II" overcrowding. Ninevah con-
tanned 60b. 900 inhabitants. but the pop
ulatlon of London WAS, for lis area, five
times as dense as that OF Ninerah. The
ancientS did not allow the dead TO lie
buried within the walls of their cities
a practice only beginning 10 be abolished
with Us In point of cleanliness. also.
they were more careful than We are. lie
read the other day of some people taking
cholera from washing the clothes of per-
Sons who had died of that maladv.-
According 10 the Mosaic law these clothes
should have been buried. Moses would
not allow people 10 live in houses that
were unhealthy, but it was no Use turn
lng the people out and allowing the house
10 stand he knew people would live in
ii II II remained, and so he said Down
with every stick and stone of it.
I'm the matter of sewerage the Ro-
mans were superior to Us. The city was
built on arches, for the purpose of COM
plete sewerage, and there vet remains a
sewer in Rome 50 wide that cart load
ed with hay might pass through it. Ex-
ccllent and well contriyed drains had
been discovered in Nineyah and other
towns. The refuse of the cities was
buried IN the open plains. The hand
looms OF thrce thousand years ago pro-
duced cloth OF as fine quality in point of
texture, color and style, rs we can pro-
duce, and the llindoos, and some of the
Africans, knew the process of manufac-
turing steel which led them to look with
contempt, and TO reject as rotten. the
specimens of these metals which we sent
them In all these points the past COM
pared tavorably with the present.
'No doubt the present had its achieve
ments- 1t had the printing-press and
railroads, telegraph, and extensive manu-
factories lie believed that Its superiori-
ty consisted more in the greater power
of production, and in the wider diffusion
OF wealth and knowledge than obtained in
the past, rather than in the intrinsic ex-
cellence, OF beauty, or brilliancy, or
of what it did or achieved"