Free press., 1906-09-01
Twas the same old life, in many
ways, that we live to-day.

ways, that we live to-day.
Il see great changes going on iviry
day of me life, but see no change iviry
fifty years"
Right you are, Mr.. Dooley, and you
could have added in all truthfuness that,
IN many basic respects, twas the same
old life in city, town, village and coun-
try two thousand years ago as is lived
to-day right here in new America
Of course, there was no iron horse
laundering over the earth two thousand
years ago. Travellers by foot and horse
had not yet been scared half out of their
wits by the footing automobile A little
red schoolhouse did not sit in every
valley. The convenience of rural free
delivery was still to be invented; SO, also,
the reaper, the telephone, the threshing
machine, the telegraph. But mans a
man for a that" has been from the be-
ginning, will doubtless be so to the end
and hence, just as the life we live is
similar in many ways to that of two
thousand years ago, so it will bear num-
erous striking resemblances to the life
led by our descendants in 1906 A. D.
Cunieform writings, which have been
recovered from ancient Babylon and
other long-buried cities, prove beyond
the shadow of doubt the similarity be-
twecSS, Aty life of to-day and of yester-
day. Papyri and other personal and
public documents recently recovered
from Egyptian sand, in and about the
site of ancient Oxyrhynchus, Greco-
Roman colony, one hundred and forty
miles south of Cairo, that had long been
in a flourishing condition when Joseph
fled with Mary and the child Jesus into
Egypt, furnish equally indisputable
proofs of similarities of town and coun-
try life then and now.
There are the private letters of Lucius
Bellenus Gemellus, for example.
Gemelus, it seems, after he was hon
oraby discharged from his legion
Egypt was then under Roman rule-took
TO farming for a livelihood. But, like
many men of to-day, he made his home
in town, whence he ran his various
farms by written instructions and per-
sonal visits.
81 blame you greatly for the loss of
two pigs owing to the fatigue of the
journey, when you had ten animals fit
for work" he wrote in Greek, which was
the vernacular of the colony, to a.
nephew, evidently in direct charge of one
of the farms. "Heraclides, tile donkey
driver, shifted the blame from himself
saving that you had told him to drive the
pigs Oh foot"
Poor nephew, by name Epagathus He
doubtless felt very badly on receipt of
that letter, but had he not so instructed
the Egyptian donkey driver with the
Greek name the world of to-day would
probably be ignorant of the fact that
pigs were carried, as we'll as driven to
market, two thousand years ago:
In another letter to Epagathus, Gemel-
lus voices his irritation over the slow
ness with which the farm work is pro-
crossing:
please carry forward the digging of
the olive yards and their plowing up
and hoeing, and plow up and hoe the
fallows, and urge the driver to do his
proper work every day. Up to to-day
you have not harvested the field at Az
ms. but have neglected it, and so far
have only harvested half Wherefore,
blame YOU"
The trick of thinning out an orchard
or a piece of woodland was well under
stood
'You will oblige me" writes Gemel-
lus, ''by sending Pindarus to me at the
town; for Hermonax has asked me to
let him take him to Kerkesucha to look
to his olive yard (orchard), as it is over
crown; and he wishes to cut down some
trees so that those which are. to be cut
dowr may be cut skilfully."
Morning" says Farmer Smith to his
nei~hbor Jones; Il wonder if you'd let
Iohn come over and give me lift on