The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1908-05-22
THE MARNfl0US PAST.

AAAh ~ ~ AA ht
G age Of wonders as well as an age Of
= strenuosity. We hear a great deal
3 about the pace that kills, the race
, that unstrings the nerves, the worry
) that brings on paresis. The main
cause Of all our troubles is uncer-
, talnty OF the Twentieth century COM
pare with the uncertainty Of the
Middle Ages? A very slight read
ing Of history will show that we live
IN a serene and lady-like era com
pared with some Of the ages Of the
past,
But we are in the habit of think
ing Of this as the age Of progress
and wonderful development. We
call attention 10 our railroads canals,
telephones, telegraph, photograph
and wireless communication as evil
dence OF our amazing superiority.
The truth is hal nearly all these
things were in use thousands Of
years ago. Our superiority lies in
the fact that we have preserved all
our discoveries and inventions. Yet
something-s0me sort of cataciysm
may happen that will destroy all
the results and evidence of modern
science, just as Nineveh and Baby
Ion were destroyed and covered up
by the sands Of the desert. Another
ice age may come upon the earth
and destroy most of the yestiges Of
life.
Now, as a matter Of fact, there is
hardly one Of our striking inyen-
lions or c%ontrlvances that has not
been anticipated in Egypt, Babylon
or some other obsolete country.
In recent years excavations in
Babylonia, Egypt and elsewhere
have revealed some remarkable
things, it now appears that ancient
Babylon had a regularly organized
system of courts, with courts Of APP
peals, thus anticipating Rome by
many centuries. Ia the reign of
ACKNOWLEDGMENT there was an ex-
ceIIent ~postoffice system, with
strange as it may seem-a free rural
delivery throughout the kingdom.
But Egypt was the veritabIe land ,
of wonders. We will pass by those
%insoluabIe problems, the pyramids =,
and the Sphinx, and consider mat
ters Of modern interest.
We are accustomed to think of
Thomas Jefferson as the father of the
service reform idea; but it now
appears that the Egyptian king, ,
1900 years before Christ, ,
adopted a system which only Of late ,
has come into favor in the American =
republic. The turbine wheel which =
is now Of so much value to the
Iunard line of steamers that cross +
great ocean, was the invention :,
the Egyptians; and by this con- '
.~riyance the fields bordering the :,
Nile were irrigated. About 1000 v
ears ago the phon0graph, which we y
lain as one of the bright particu- >
ar inventions Of our day, was in use !,
n Egypt, 1t is even claimed that :.
hey had wireless telegraphy in
hat country in the twilight age of :
A deciphering of the rec
'rds Of this wonderful land shows
hat they had business transactions, ;,
ales OF real estate, loans, double :,
ntry bookkeeping, dictionaries, y
books and medical works II
cry much as we have to-day. The y.
egyptians circumnavigated Africa -
nd had a canal connecting the Red -,
nd the Mediterranean seas along "
ne line now followed by the Suez Il,
anal "
1t is we'll enough to revive these "
cad and vanished facts, every now VI
nd then, in order to curb any in y,
we may have to an undue ~
SpanSion Of the chest and a disten.
on of the head. We are a long -
behind the Egyptians. We :"
re duplicating the things they dis d"
,vered tens Of centuries before.
ur wonders are secondhand, our
are echoes of dead splendors,
IT marvellous ingenuity is but a SO
petition. But we live in a more
tactical age, and 80 through our
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