The morning call., 1890-06-04

The enterprise of the age is illustrated by
the offer of speculator to sell to the
Chicago Exposition the mummifed body of
Cleopatra. If the city by the lake could
really exhibit the actual body Of the fairest
daughter Of mantle serpent of old Nile
it would indeed be fetching card. Cleo
patra, in her dried-up skin, with leathery
strip of epidermis in the place Of those
lips which TO kiss was ely5ium, set up in
glass case by the side of skeleton Of
great mastOdon from some Missouri slough,
would be a resurrection of ancient history
such as the world has never seen. There
would be this difference between the.two:
the mastodon would speak for himself, and
no doubling Thomas could question his
genuineness. But whether the mummy
labeled Cleopatra was really the body of
the siren who conquered the conquerors of
the world might admit Of good deal of
question.
Signor Tagliaferro, who offers this dead
queen for sale, says that he unearthed
sarcophagus at Alexandria which was hers.
1t is not at all certain that Cleopatra died
at Alexand ria. There is reason TO believe
that the story of the asp and of her death
were invented long after the event, and that
Augustus Caesar, who was q prudent fellow,
made sure of her person as soon as Antony
had committed suicide. At all events, the
evidence that she figured in his triumph at
Rome is stronger than the testimony in
support Of the story which Shakespeare
adopted. In those days, fallen greatness
commanded no respect, and aroused no curl
osity. No one cared what became of Han
nibal, or Marius, or Themistocles, or
Belisarius, when they were down. When
Egypt ceased to be an obstacle to Augustus
he probably concerned himself little about
what became of the last of the Ptolemies,
except to see that she marched through the
forum at the head of his captiyes.
AS for mummies, they are plentiful
enough in Egypt. After Belzoni wrote,
craze for mummies arose in Europe. In
England especially fabulous sums were
paid for fine specimens. The result was
general spoliation Of the tombs and gen.
eral drag-Out of the poor dead Egyptians
by the heels. Dead Pharoahs and their
wives and children were the popular
fovorites. Unfortunately. thousand
years before the English appetite for
royal flesh arose. another race, bent not
on archaeological triumphs, but on mere
sordd plumber. had ransacked most of the
royal tombs to seize the jewels which they
generally contained. mus the EGYPTIAN
dealers in curios were compelled to cheat
their English customers and to pass off as
royal corpses mummies of persons who, for
aught we know. may have belonged to an
inferior class of society. They were duly
labeled as soyereigns, princes and prn-
cesses, and, as there was no one to question
their nobility, they assumed conspicuous
places in European museums, palaces and
castles. But after time the supply of
secOnd-ehop mummies proved insu fficent
to supply the demand. Then British in
genuity stepped to the front and, side by
side with the factory which manufactures
old Roman jewels and Etruscan pottery
| and those queer little bronze objects which
Roman girls hung from their necklaces for
luck, mummy factory was established,
which will turn you out Pharoah or
Pharoah's daughter with the bulrushes at
her feet in short order and at moderate
cost. Such a factory, we judge, would exc
cute an order for Cleopatra with prompt
ness and dispatch, and for small addi-
tional fee it would furnish the asp likewise
Had not Chicago better deal with Birming-
ham than with Alexandria?