St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1882-01-21

a common center. Not word IS
spoken. All porting over books, and 81
lent attendants in creakless shoes bring
ing them more books. Mostly pale,
sallow, lean and middle or prematurely
aged men, their brains matched with
lifeless wigs, their eyes glazing into
books through staring spectacles, clothes
black and seedy and hanging in wrinkles
about their spare anatomies. Such are
some of the male mummies who pass
their days examining from books at the
British Museum library; examining, per-
chance, for some well-to-do writer;
examining for "points" he may wish to
use in novel, essay or work philosophy
CAL theological, biographical or histor-
ical; examining for a few shilllngs per
day, just enough to buy food at the SIX
pence chop-house to hold body together
while their minds cram; going down
like old buckets into these wells OF
knowledge and coming up full andpo
ing into some other mans reservoir,
and so going down and coming up I'M
til the hoops burst, the slaves tumble IN
and their weary souls fly out OF the
wells mouth and out of the British Mu-
scum library. For certainly such a life
kills them off; dries their flesh to leath-
5er as they breathe this atmosphere OF
old books, old leather, old parchment,
sold paper and old musty ideas.
4 Here, also, in this great and silent
reading-room, is the British female
Slnummy, living cadaver or literary
sghoul, feeding on tones; working for
sscanty bread by digging up long writ
ten nonsense or lies, or strings OF words
too complicated in structure and too
sunintelligible as to comprehension to be
Iheemed other than the deepest wisdom.
Here she is, poor thing, with her note
book and pencil, her parchment-hued
complexion, her well-worn bombazlne.
her ringlets in wormGke convolutlons,
Her iank and bony form painfully sugg-
gestive of the nearness of all parts OF her
skeleton to her skin-that skeleton and
that skin and all the rest so strangely
kept alive, when for her there is so little
to live on. Maybe she is. also making
fame'' for semebody-fame which may
last a hundred years. !.
BONES, STONES AND MUMMIEs.
I Other great rooms are full of bones
and stones and supposed wisdom in
bones and stones. Mummified. animals
taken from Egyptian .catacombs, es-
pecially cats; scores and scores OF glass
Jars full of mummified cats, or what
once were CATS now all fallen to pieces,
and bones of cats, skins of cats, c4aws OF
ancient cats and embalming rags of cats
feline skulls, ribs, rags and dust all IN
d tumble. ~.
Other damp halls holding Egyptian
mllmmies, some quite perfect in their
painted eases, some decayed, with skele-
ton hands and great and little toe bones
turned up and sticking out Of the burst
and tattered cerements. @s
Some of the halls abound plentifully
in Egyptian stone collins, ransacked
from their graves and carried over the
sea just as my noble English Lord S
coffin may be 1000 years hence by some
curious race whose reading of English
history may be condensed to page full
of dates. Some of these collins weigh
TONS 1t must have taken a contractor
to undertake an Egyptian funeral. l
suppose when the relatives took their
last look of the dear departed mummy,
they put up the shears over the house,
1 took off the roof and let down thou
sand or so pounds of stone lid. Then
the gearing was made fast to the three
ton stone box itself, and six or eight
yoke of oxen outside were put to the
hosting apparatus, and very slowly, at
the rate Of an inch minute, the sarco-
phagus went up out of the room before
the eyes Of the mourners. At this rate
it must have taken a week to get it tc
the cemetery. The funeral pace OF to,
day is horse race to that of the ancient
Egyptians. But what delusion was
theirs to think they were holed for at
eternity. Here they are in land I'm.
known in their time, and peeped over
and into by mighty race, some Of
whose representative from Yorkshire as
they twist their necks over the sides re.
mark: .sOh, say Bill. Wot 'og trough
this 'ere would make, eh?n Poor desc.
Grated Egypt!
MUSEUM ATTENDANTS.
And this is the British Museum at.
tendant. One, guardian to each room
Generally sits on a bench and sleeps
Or wanders about betwixt sleeping and
waking. Carries in his hand a Wand
i like a billiard cue. Symbol of authority tt
i poke trespassers and disturbers. Seems
to prop him up while sleeping on his
bench. Ditto while sleeping on his feet
I don't mean to say that the poor mar
sleeps healthy, legitimate sleep. Hi;
eyes are generally open, and his Other
senses about half awake. It's the con
dition to which his tiresome, tedious
monotonous employment reduces him
He has nothing to do but to stay in these
great, damp halls and watch these deae
things. Bones and stones. All the day.
of his life are so passed, save Sundays
amid dead bones and stones, mummies
collins and dead and stuffed elephants
lions, tigers, rhinoceroses, giraffes, hye