The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-11-19
/ The Globes S Ssms,!@ay 8
The Rise and Growth Of Weatth.
BY 5. BENJAMIN ANDREWS, Il. D.
How the Economic Life of Mankind
Has Come Up; Method of Tracing
the Process, Primitive Men.

the Process, Primitive Men.
Everyone can remember very many
changes in the matchmaking habits and
conditions of the people among whom he
has lived. We have seen in our day va
riouS forms of business which were uni
ties ten or fifteen years since broken up
into several EACH and we have seen the
reverse process gone through in a great
er number of cases, a hundred or q
thousand separate firms gathered into a
monster corporation or trust Many
readers can recall the time when there
We're no, or few, travelling statesmen,
though Plutarch cites Desmosthenes to
the effect that there were such at Ath-
ems The trust is iessening again the
numbers of travelling men, The tele-
phone has shaken the old economic
course OF things, as did the railway
and the telegraph each in it's day III
the vicinities Of cities it has rendered
less necessary large retail stocks of
goods and has thus, perhaps, contributed
to the fall of prices in recent years
Did you ever think why the India
wharf of Boston was so named or no.
tice that few If any ships from India
touch it now? The China trade, the
India trade in their old form as carried
on by great houses like ELEPHANTS. in
London, and A. A. Low & Brothers, of
New York, are Things of the past.
Steamships, ocean cables, Pacific rail-
ways and the Suez canal have DESTROYED
them. The state of those distant mar
ketS is reported in Chicago, New York
and other great commercial centers daily
II not hourly, and an American firm, to
trade thither, no longer needs a special
establishment there, it's own ships or a
vast capital, all of which Messrs. Low
and the other India merchants of their
day found indispensable.
More differences than MANY suspect
prevail in modes of business between
somewhat contiguous sections at the
same time. In New England and New
York the bulk of the retail trade is for
cash, and credit, when allowed and ac-
copied, runs three months. 1t is said
that IN Louisiana not more than Is per
cent of the business, wholesale or retail.
is for cash, and that credit averages to
run q year.
Time naturally effects as great differ
ences as space. The occasion of these
need not be inventions or the slow on
ward movement of general civilization.
Alexander Hamilton as Webster remark
ed, raised the public credit of the United
States from the dead Bismarck not only
created the German empire: he created A.
great foreign commerce for it. Colbert
did the same for France. 1t was an
epoch in the history of Rome and of
the world when Emperor Justinian, the
first ruler in all antiquity to busy HIM
self with economic matters, introduced
silk culture into Europe from China To
MIN also Europe owes a great thought
usually supposed to have come up first
in the crusades, that, namely, of the
value Of trade with Asia; for it was a
favor1te element of his policy not only to
protect commerce In general, but, by
negotiation with Abyssinia and Sogdiana
to open for it the Red sea route to the
East, independent of Persia Even he
Was not the first to see the value of that
route. Pharaoh Necho H., who ruled
Egypt from GIG to 594 B. c., caused Phoe-
nician sailors to sail all the way around
Africa and actually began constructing
canal from the Nile to the Red sea-
BY what methods the Egyptian people
got their living tne hieroglyphics reveal
full well. Though no engineer can tell
us just how the pyramids were put up,
of course such vast expenditures of Ia
Dor and capital presuppose the existence
OF much wealth and of organized society.
According to HerOdotuS it took 100000
men ten years SIMPLY to construct the
causeway by which the stone for the
Cneops pyramid was transported from
the quarries to the Nile boats. The labor
was doubtless slave labor, but the slaves
had to be fed. Moreover, as we shall
see, slavery does not arise till a consid-
cradle degree of civilization has been
reached The Cheops pyramid has a base
length of 746 feet; it's height is $50 feet.
For the Chafren pyramid these dimen-
sions are, respectively, 690A, and 4471s.
Both piles must originally have been
much larger.
Tablets from King Snefrou's time, not
later than 1900 B. c., and probably much
earlier, show us art wonderfully adj
vanced and civilization in general COM
pletely organized, with physiognomy
thoroughly its own, and marks of a long
past. Drawing, sculpture and architec-
ture already in some features approach
ed final perfection. Under dynasty XII.
the practical arts and sciences We're in
splendid bloom. Men weaved. made pot
terry, blew glass and worked gold.
OF the industrial affairs of Nineveh
and Babylon the bricks of these ruined
capitals give compieter account. Like
Egypt, Babylonia had an elaborate sys-
tenn of irrigation canals. Weaving. Iron
working and most of the other forms
of skilled labor were common. Com
merce thrived. Babylon was city of
merchants. Phenician sails whitened the
Persian gulf, the Red sea, the Mediter
ranean. and evenLthe Atlantic coasts of
A africa and Europe. Tin from Cornwall
and the Scilly islands was exchanged for