San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1925-10-25

Photograph of One of the Members of the de Prorok
Expedition Reconstructng the Skeleton of Infant
Which Had Been Sacrificed to the God Moloch and
Was Found in Sacrhcial Urn Dug UP in the Sacred
Cemetery of the Temple of Moloch.
thing to find out is why the Carthagnian priests de-
vised and persisted in an atrocity that must have
earned them the hatred of every parent Without
any doubt there practical, hard-headed reason
for that wholesale child murder Religious rites are
not invented whmscally; they planned with
purpose.
Count de Prorok believes and hopes to prove that
the little ones sacrificed for political and mill
tary reasons. Imagine the power this gave to the
priesthood and the oigarchy which ruled with the
priests modern minister can exhort from his
pulpit he can call on you personally, advise, rebuke
and perhaps threaten with punishment in the world
to come unless you do what he thinks right. But
that is about all.
Suppose in addition he had the power to select
your youngest boy girl to be burned alive in the
flaming stomach of Mooch Would anyone dare
dsobey him? The Count believes that this fearful
threat against their children not only kept the Car
thaginians in restraint at home but held the officer
to his duty the long and hearbreaking campaigns
such as Hannibal waged against Rome
When reads of the revolving and cruel relig-
ous rites and of the great Carthagnian armies
pouring over the Alps and devastating Italy, it is
natural to suppose that this race of military
nothing of the kind. They had small faith and
interest in the life to come and hated war. Above
all, the Carthagnians nation of hard-headed,
practical business men, probably the most business
like people that ever lived
They were descended from the Phoenicians, who
were closely related to the Jews, and had all the
business genius of the Semitic They are cred
tied with being the first to put standardized money
into real business circulation Though they seem not
to have invented anything except banking and &C
counting systems, yet they the capitalists, car
riers and middlemen for the Mediterranean and
vicinity.
They had seven-story business skyscrapers in
Carthage, and probably we will find that there were
elevators run by slave power. Slave power was the
only power there in those days city that
wanted to have power for industrial purposes had to
have slaves, and the only way to have slaves was to
get them with army, and without an army the city
itself would be enslaved. So for business rea-
the Carthaginians had armies and navies.
The native 100 per cent Carthaginian avoided
military service Improbable compared with
business career, the Punic armies were largely
composed of mercenaries and with these hired rag
tag and bob-tai the Carthaginian business men al
most conquered Rome.
The Carthaginans traded all over the Mediter-
ranean down the Atlantic coast of Africa and as far
north as England Whenever the Greek and later
the Roman business tried to break into new ter
ritory he found that it impossible to do business
without paying commission or rake-of of some
kind to a Carthaginian. Even after Rome had