Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-07-05
PRZNIIGENIUS ARRIVED
sAHERE 100000 YEARS ACC
He Didn't Uear High Hat and Disregarded Fashions and
Well Biologists Don't Kno,V Much about Him

place where gncis shows is along Cobb's
creek.
Sweet Rapture, No Traffic Guardians
The Delaware river was a much larger
and wilder stream then, and if the
Schuylkill was meandering around at
the time it meandered dpcorously and
nobody had to drink of its waters il
they didn't want to. There were no
houses, nor tenements. nor fats in the
days of 10S,0O0 b. c. And conse-
quently there were no streets and no
traffic policemen. There was one chap.
nevertheless, who made himself self
appointed vigilance committee. He's
dead now.
The homo primigenius. or animal that
walked on two legs. of Philadelphia. has
had history covering years and years.
Ages ago. paleontOlogists say. whole
patches of invertebrates. belemnites.
trilobites, blatherskites and that sort of
fry were soaked in the primary sea for
20, ,OOO. 200 years and the oyster evolved.
From the oyster developed the ammo :
mites and the pteridophytes. and after
10000, 900 more years came the Silurian
ass, and about that time. according to
Mark Twain, folks thought that man
was about due.
And he arrived in Philadelphia, this
homo primigenius did. dressed with en- :
the disregard toward fashions; without
! a top hat; without cigarct case. He
didn't exactly look like man. but he
said he was, and the natives believed
him. He said that all this previous
world history had been arranged. lust
so he might eventually be evolved. He
! looked like food profitecr and couldn't
speak American. He had a rpceding
forehead and an overdcvclopcd jaw
Homo Liked Philly =.
Mr.. Homo Primigonius rather liked
Philadelphia. 1t was wealthy in wild
vegetation and pleased the esthetic eve
of Mr.. Homo with its rich and motley
colors. All the swamps had been drai incG
by the upheaval He stuck around q
while and opened nickeodeum cafe
terra.
And the transient beasts and the birds
that Travelled up from the south. OF
those that had been forced to move
south because of the glacial flood which
never got nearer to Philadelnhia than
Easton, patronized his place. The prim
tive horse with its nose like lions
and its tail like a mules; and the
saber -to6thed tiger. who shortly was
induced to become the police depart
ment: and the long tusked mastodon
and the cave bear. and the jaguar, ant
the lynx and the fox. and the giant
tapir. and not forgetting the skunk
they all became loyal citizens of Phila
delphia. They had no charter. The
charter, just recently revised, was com
posed about ten years later.
Mr.. Homo suffered severe loss. how
ever, which tore away from him hi,
.many neighbors. One of the grear
earth changes occurred and swept mos
of his friends into fissure up in Por
Kennedy, Pa. And no word of then
had been heard until some twenty year,
ago, when a prowling geologist located
the fossils of every one of them deep il
the earth that had settled in the fissur,
since-the catastrophe.
Homo survived his terrible loss il
one way or another. The story of hi
life is largely speculation. He died be
fore he wrote his autobiography or be
fore the police were able to get his rec
!. ord. and his children have been devel
loping ever since. They deyelope,
through the stone age and the bronz
! age and are still developing In this age
II. ftat