, 1880-02-08

aua1r5, because in the year 3S5 Theodosfus found
~ necessary to Issue an order torhtddIng those
"no roae post-horses to use saddles weighing
more than sixty pounds! After the heavy sad
ole came the costly saddle. In the fifth century
eaaales we're made SO e1travasantly magnificent
US 70 call for the interference Of the Govern
ment~ The Emperor Leo l. issued an edict in
"n'cn II was ordered that saddles "shou1d not
po ornamented with pearls and precious stones"
1tsoems to have been two or three hundred
years oeforcstirrups were thought Of as con-
Venlent accessory to the saddle. In the statue
OF Ira3an ut Rome the legs Of the rider hang
oo"n without any support Whatever. In the alb
eence OF stfrrups 1nount1ng-stools were pro-
Vlaeo- Some horses were taught to kneel to re-
celVe their riders, and, In other cases. CONQUERED
frlaces and Generals were forced to stoop their
oacks to the foot Of the rider. Thus the En-
peror Va1erian bent to his victor, Sapor, King Of
Persia
That Necessity is tho mother of invention il
shown by the history Of horseshoes. They came
IN with paved streets and gravel roads. The
morse OF the Arab who roamed the desert as
tree and almost as swift as the wind required no
shoes and had none. In Ethiopia and Tartary
horses are still unshod. The Greeks and Ro-
mans shod their horses sometimes in time Of
war, but presumably only when their feet were
sore. and then clumsily with leather or hemp,
not with iron nailed on to the hoof. Ncro's
favortt mules were, however, shod with silver
shoes.
1t was not until the eighth or ninth century
that the modern horseshoe was invented. But
IL "as long time even then before horse
shoeing became general in Europe. Iron was
scarce, and It was all required for the fabrica-
ton OF arms and armor. In the eleventh oen-
tury, when rich Prince Of Tuscany went to
meet his bride, his train was magnifcently deco
rated and bis horses were shod with silver Tho
nails with which the shoes were fastened were
also Of silver, and when one Of them dropped
out it was the spoil Of tho finder.
Undoubtedly We owe much to the ancients.
Invention is a progression Of ideas. Each step
in advance contains hint Of the next That
the e,moderns take the hint quicker than the an
clients did is owing to the fact OF the
greater diffusion OF knowledge. Among
the ancients the development of the
Tine arts, as painting and sculpture, far
outran that Of the practical arts The archi-
tect devoted great wealth Of genius to the
construction Of palaces, aud temples which
should dszzle the eye with their splendid pro-
portions and gorgeous ornarnentaton; but he
never devised comfortable tenemcnt-house.
The people Of India made cotton fabrics 60 fine
that, being spread upon the grass and wet with
dew, they were no longer discernible; but In the
industry which constitutes the basis of all other
neutrality-suspicious. methods wero
simply wretchcd. Egypts architectural monu-
nents remain the wonder OF the world oven to
the present time. Her people attained to po-
sihon Of prominence in all the then known arts
Of civilized ufo. But Herodotus says Of the
Egyptians: "When tho fields have been trrl-
gated by the food Of the river, each man
sows his own 1nnd and turns swine into
it; and when the seed has been trod-
den in by the swine, be afterwards waits for
and then. having trod out the corn
with his swine, he gathers it in." In the HERO
g1yphics found in the Pyramids, which have
required ages to decipher we see the dawn of the
salvation of all arts, through the art Of s'making
thought permanent in written characters" The
ancicnts could neither teach tho many what the
few know, nor preserve what they had acquired
for the instruction Of future ages. So VIC recur
to the printing press rs the source Of modern
education and the salvation Of each step Of
modern progress,-the distinctive feature Of
difference between the civilization Of the an i
clients and tho moderns. !