THE ANCIENT GREEKS
THEY WERE MASTERS IN THE
SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT.
Many Sturdy Qnnlltlen Had the Mul
titude, but the Individual Conld
Hot Stand Prosperity—One Brilliant
Exception to the Rule.
The statues and literary master
pieces of Hellas, whose themes were
mainly legendary, are responsible for
the impression that the ancient Greek
was cast in the heroic mold. The he
roic Greek was a turbulent, master
ful, egotistic demigod. He bad no
counterpart in any historical figure ex
cept Alexander the Great, who deem
ed himself a descendant of Achilles,
the sen nymph's son, and acted very
much like him.
The Greek of history was an uncom
monly consistent republican. In the
tolerance he gave to individualism and
the capacity he showed—inside his city
state—for collective action he carried
the science of government and of po
litical self control in some respects to
a height from which all subsequent
history is a descending slope. While
maintaining democratic standards, he
did not enforce nor bow to that tyran
nous and narrowing public opinion
which in our own time threatens to
cast nil men in much the same mold.
■He found a place in his scheme of
things for diversities of natural bent—
for the effeminate dress of Alcibiades,
the tub of Diogenes, the railings of
Cleon, the austerities of Aristides, the
Batire of Aristophanes, the arrogance
of Phocion. The democracy of Athens
was never the democracy of the dead
level. It meant opportunity, not a
steam roller.
As creditable a story is told on the
side of collective action. Greek politics
implied, as Mahnffy has observed, "the
reasonable discussion of the public, the
final decision of the majority, the sub
mission of magistrates and rulers to
the will of the people." The Greek
"multitude" was tolerant, patient, loy
al to its leaders and capable, as it
showed in the Peloponnesian war, of
making exemplary sacriflces and of in
itiating and maintaining a course of
action for a protracted period. The
whole population of Athens, for in
stance, abandoned the country and
took to their ships, leaving the enemy
to destroy their city and their posses
sions while they sought him and finally
conquered him on the sea. For that
fortitude it would be impossible to find
a modern parallel.
The civic qualities are uppermost in
the great period of Greek history—a
keen appreciation of humor that acted
as a safety valve to the turbulence of
assemblies, an aptitude at public
speaking which was useful in battle as
in council. Every free Greek was at
once a legislator, an orator, a potential
admiral or general.
There was one capital defect In the
Hellenic character. The individual
Greek could not stand prosperity. As
Grote put it, "The effects of a copious
draft of glory on the temperament of
an enterprising and ambitious Greek
were perfectly maddening." He was a
good loser, but nearly always a bad
winner. Almost every conspicuous
Greek of history became at the end a
corruptionist or a traitor. Miltiades,
victor of Marathon, became a pirate
and died in imprisonment. Themisto
cles was negotiating to betray the Gre
cian armament to the great king the
day before he destroyed the Persian
fleet at Salamis. Alcibiades betrayed
in turn the Athenians, the Spartans
and the Persians. Demosthenes was
banished for embezzlement. The Syra
cusan leaders became tyrants when
they could. Of all Greeks only Timo
leon, the Corinthian who freed Syra
cuse, was at once honorable, fortunate
and acclaimed.
Although the Hellenic world fringed
the Mediterranean and the Black seas
from end to end, the significant politi
cal history of Greece is almost alto
gether the history of Athens and Spar
ta. The great places of heroic legend,
Ithaca and Pylos and Phthia nud Ar
cadia and Argos and Coreyra, "the
Phaeakes' land," figure but faintly in
the historical period. Ithaca was only
a barren rock, Arcadia a recruiting
ground for rustic mercenaries and Ar
gos and Coreyra and such states ns Ae
tolia, Messena, Thessaly and the Achae
an League ancient prototpyes of the
rude and turbulent Balkan states of to
day. The transitory pre-eminence of
Thebes was the pre-eminence of its
one great soldier, Epaminondas.
Betlveen them Spartans and Atheni
ans wrote the great story of political
Greece. The Spartans were more a
military brotherhood than a state, the
men dining in barracks and visiting
their families by stealth and all free
men despising wealth and any toil ex
cept that of the gymnasium, the drill
ground and the battlefield. They were
a proud, shy, self contained, home
keeping people, so ill at ease and un
practiced in public speech that the
word "laconic" has become a proverb.
Their cautious political sense, their
military discipline, their long lived dy
nasty and their unbroken maintenance
of one form of government secured
them the instinctive deference of other
Greeks.
What the Spartans were not the
Athenians in their best period were—
eager wanderers over the earth, traf
fickers. imperialists, orators, scholars
and artists. They were always "get
ting forward." As the slower Pelopon
nesians complained, every acquisition
was made by them the basis of a
new venture, and when they meas
ured arms with the complainants they
showed that they could be as eons', hit
I n misfortune and as elastic in risk.:
from crushing disaster as they
aggressive in pressing un advauf.:^
Mew York Mali
i snowsudes.
They Are Fearful of Speed and B
Magnificent Spectacle.
Snowslides are most frequent on
steep mountains that have a heavy
snowfall. With a billowy train of
snow dust boiling out behind and over
turning or crushing almost everything
before they rfake an awful and mag
nificent spectacle. Their speed is some
times so great that trees alongside are
overturned by the swamping force of
the air which the slide has violently
disturbed.
There are many well authenticated
Instances where miners have been
caught on the surface of a slide aud by
dexterous use of their skees have kept
on top of the engulfing surface of the
slide and come out uninjured. John
Muir once rode down from the high
Sierra on a snowslkle. He was swish
ed back down in a minute over a dis
tance that had taken all day to climb.
One day while climbing up a steep
snowy slope a slide started beneath
me, and for a time I was on the sur
face of its upper edge, where the snow
was about two feet deep. Wading a
torrent will give some idea of the sweep
of the coasting snow. The snow dust
steamed arid boiled up around me, and
each time I struggled to my feet the
rushing snow simply jerked my feet
from beneath me. At last, almost
smothered, I was dropped off the back
end upon bare ground.—Enos A. Mills
in Harper's Weekly.
WEAPONS DECLINED.
Vireliow'n Odd Proponltion When
Challenged by llUuiarck.
Dr. Virchow, the eminent man of sci
ence, bad been sharply criticising
Prince Bismarck, who was then chan
cellor.
At the end of a particularly severe
attack Bismarck felt himself personal
ly affronted and sent seconds to Vir
chow with a challenge to fight a duel.
The man of science was found in his
laboratory, hard at work at experi
ments which had for their object the
discovery of a means of destroying
trichinae, which were making great
ravages in Germany.
"Ah," said the doctor, "a challenge
from Prince Bismarck, oh! Well, well!
As I am the challenged party, I sup
pose I have the choice of weapons.
Here they are!"
He held up two large sausages, which
seemed to be exactly alike.
"One of these sausages," be said, "is
filled with trichinae; it Is deadly. The
other Is perfectly wholesome. Exter
nally they can't be told apart. Let bis
excellency do me the honor to choose
whichever of these be wishes and eat
it, and I will ent the other!"
Though the proposition was as rea
sonable as any dueling proposition
could be, Prince Bismarck's represent
atives refused it. No duel was fought,
and no one accused Virchow of cow
ardice.
INDEXING BOOKS.
The CuNtoni la nn Old One Thnt De
veloped Rather Slowly.
The custom of indexing books devel
oped gradually. Cicero used the word
"index," but in the sense of a table of
contents. Seneca provided some works
which be sent to a friend with notes of
particular passages, "so that be who
only aimed at the useful might be
spared the trouble of examining them
entire." This was at least a partial
"index" in the modern sense. Anno
tated, or at least explanatory, tables of
contents seem to have preceded the In
dex proper.
Such tables followed the order of ap
' pearance of the subjects in the book
itself. Alphabetical arrangement,
which was the beginning of the real in
dex. appears not to have been thought
of until the invention of printing, and
even then it spread but slowly. Eras
mus was one of the first to provide iiis
works with alphabetical indexes. The
custom did not become universal un
til well into the sixteenth century.
The first index to an English book is
said to be that printed In Polydore
Vergil's "Angliae Historiae," in 1540.
An edition of this work published ten
years later has an index of thirty-seven
pages.
The Hnnffarian Crown.
The Hungarian crown worn at their
accession by the emperors of Austria
as kings of Hungary is the identical
one made for Stephen and used at bis
; coronation over 800 years ago. The
| whole is of pure gold, except the set
| tings, and weighs nine marks six
I ounces, almost exactly fourteen
pounds. The settings above alluded to
consist of 53 sapphires. 50 rubies, 1 em- !
erald and 338 pearls. It will be noticed
j that there are no diamonds among i
these precious adornments. This is ac- ;
counted for by the oft quoted story of
; Stephen's aversion to such gems be- ,
cause he considered them "unlucky."
Argun Eyed and rfj-drn Headed.
; The term "Argus eyed" means watch
ful. According to the Grecian fable,
Argus bad 100 eyes, and Juno set him
to watch all of whom she was jealous.
When Argus was slaiu she transplant
ed bis eyes into the tail of the pea
cock. "Hydra headed" is a term de
rived from the fable of Hercules and
I the hydra. The hydra had nine heads,
and Hercules was sent to kill it. As
soon as be struck off one of its beads
two shot up In its place.
Tbc Interest In It.
Pipson—1 wonder what there was In
the paper today about Masters? Grimes
—Didn't know there was anything. Pip
son—Ob, there must have been. He
was saying to me that today's issue
was usually interesting.
Happiness and misery are two ex
tremes, the utmost bounds whereof we
know not.—Locke.
the b eggar trust.
A Scheme Thnt For a Time Wi. WL
Success In New York.
Several years ago a one legged youth
named Kempton, who had left a com
fortable home to engage deliberately in
begging, conceived the idea of organiz
ing a community of interest among
panhandlers in the Park row district, in
New York. He picked out strategic
■pots throughout the city and selected
a man to beg in each. These men were
always particularly well adapted to
their posts—a blink (blind man) here, a
crust thrower there, a maimed youth
somewhere else. In order that the beg
gars might not be molested by the po
lice a lookout was appointed for each,
and in order that the syndicate's inter
ests might be conserved Kempton em
ployed roundsmen to observe bow
faithfully the beggars attended to busi
ness and to collect hourly the earnings
of each. In case of arrest each mem
ber of the band was assured of legal
representation, to be paid for out of
the earnings of the pool.
The scheme thrived for many months,
and at one time there were thirty men
in the combination, which became a
close corporation of profit and power.
There is no knowing to what extent
it might have expanded nor bow influ
ential it might have become at last had
not the nature of the organization
given It undue prominence and caused
it to fall directly under the ban of the
mendicant squad. One by one the mem
bers were captured and sent to the is
land, and In the end the gang was
broken up.—Theodore Waters in Every
body's Magazine.
AN ASPHALT LAKE.
The Way the Stnff In Mined and Pre
pared For Market.
The largest South American asphalt
lake, in Venezuela, consists of a dark
brownish deposit of semifluid and semi
solid substance surrounded by banks
from three to six feet high. In the cen
ter of tills lake is a continual ejection
of hot fluid asphalt, accompanied by
large bubbles of gas.
The dark skinned workmen excavate
it in pieces weighing in the neighbor
hood of twenty-five pounds, sections
forty feet in area and about four feet
deep being worked at one time. As
quickly as freed from its surroundings
It is placed In large tubs, resting upon
small flat topped tram cars operated
upon a narrow gauge road. The entire
surface Is constantly moving, thus ne
cessitating a continual relaying of the
tracks.
The freshly excavated asphalt is con
veyed to the shore, where the tubs are
lifted by hydraulic power to an aerial
tramway, by which it is conveyed to
the large wharf situated on the Gua
nero river, about five miles distant
from the lake. Here it is weighed and
dumped into vessels which convey it to
the foreign lands.
Upon its arrival at a factory it is
heated until the water is expelled and
the earthy material cast to the bottom
of the large vats, and it is poured
through a sieve into barrels, where it
solidifies. It is then ready for com
merce.—New York Tribune.
Virtue's quick Reward.
"Nothing ever better illustrated to
me," remarked the doctor, "the old
adage, 'Virtue is its own reward,' than
an experience I had the other day.
Called for the first time to a patient
who was desperately ill in addition to
being penniless, I gave her $5 with
which to purchase the necessities of
life. The next morning I received a
note from her not to call again. Later
I learned she had called in a homeo
pathic physician, to whom she paid a
fee of 82, and with the remainder of
my charitable contribution she paid a
monthly installment on a phonograph."
—New York Press.
Whnt tile Hand Symbolizes.
Look where we will, we find the
hand In time and history, working,
building, inventing, bringing civiliza
tion out of barbarism. The hand sym
bolizes power and the excellence of
work. The mechanic's hand, that min
ister of elemental forces, the hand that
hews. saws, cuts, builds, is useful In
the world equally with the delicate
band that paints a wild flower or
molds a Grecian urn or the hand of a
statesman that writes a law. The eye
cannot say to the hand, "I have no
need of thee." Blessed he the hand!
Thrice blessed be the hands that work!
—Helen Keller in Century.
Anecdote of Lewis Clirrnll.
Canon Liddon wrote this in his diary
concerning an incident of a holiday tour
he took with his friend, Charles L.
Dodgson, better known as Lewis Car
roll: "Dodgsou was overcome by the
beauty of Cologne cathedral. I found
him leaning against the rails of the
choir and sobbing like a child. When
the verger came to show us over the
chapels he got out of tlie way. He
said that he could not bear the harsh
voice of the man in the presence of so
much beauty."
JviMt Debts.
"And what were the provisions of
your uncle's will?"
"That I should have ail he left after
the payment of his just debts."
"Ah. very good of the old man.
wasn't it? What did he leave?"
"Just debts."—Chicago Record-Her*
ald.
Pr«flt on n Tub.
A man who bought an old metal tub
for 12 shillings at Winchester found It to
be the borough bushel measure of the
reign of George III. and sold it to an
American for £00.—London Mail.
If the market value of advice were
to take a rise the whole world would
be rolling In riches.— New Orleans Pica
yune.
OPERA L3LASSES.
Poor One* Are the C'anne of n Host
of Ocular Infirmities.
The woman was not old, hut she com
plained that her eyesight was failing
fast. The oculist was a fatherly look
ing old gentleman; consequently he felt
privileged to put a few questions de
cidedly personal and apparently non
professional.
"Do you go to the theater often?" he
asked.
"Once or twice a week."
"In what part of the house do you
sit?"
"Usually in the top gallery," came
the hesitating reply.
"And now what grade of opera glass
es do you use?"
"I'm afraid," said the woman, "that
they are not good."
"I thought so," said the doctor.
"That's what's the matter with your
eyes. Poor opera glasses are ruining
them. If I had my way there wouldn't
be a cheap pair of opera glasses on the
market. They are death to the eyes.
A couple of seasons of theater going
in the top gallery with poor glasses for
a steady companion nre sure to dam
age the best pair of eyes in town. Bet
ter a hundred times let the glasses
alone. If you hnve a good, strong pair,
all right—go ahead and use them. If
not, trust to the naked eye for making
out the mysteries of the play. The
sight will not suffer half so much.
"Poor glasses will not focus proper
ly, and any one who uses them fre
quently, especially at that distance
from the stage, is sowing the seed of
headaches, dancing lights and stars,
wrinkles and a host of other ocular in
firmities."—Chicago Tribune.
HISTORY OF SHEEP.
Associated With Mankind From the
Enrlleat Known Days.
Of all domesticated animals the
sheep has from time immemorial been
most closely associated with mankind,
writes R. Henry Rew in Outing. An
erudite author sixty years ago, having
laboriously collated an assortment of
allusions to sheep made by sacred and
profane writers, concluded that "the
history of these animals is so inter
woven with the history of man that
they never existed in a wild state at
all. Biblical history from the time of
Abel is full of allusions to the flocks
which formed the chief possessions of
the Jewish people and their neighbors.
The spoils of war and the tribute of
vassal kings largely consisted of sheep.
Thus we read that Mesha, king of
Moah, was a sheep master and render
ed uuto the king of Israel a hundred
thousand lambs and a hundred thou
sand rams with the wool. Moses after
his victory over the Midlanites obtain
ed as loot no less than 075,000 sheep,
and long before the Christian era sheep
were cultivated in western Europe.
Spain and Italy possessed them from
an unknown period, although long after
Rome was founded the inhabitants had
not learned to sheer the fleece, and un
til the time of Pliny the practice of
plucking it from the skin was not whol
ly abandoned, so long that the humble
shepherds of Syria preceded in their
knowledge of necessary arts the future
conquerors of their country.
A Tale of "Tipping:.''
To tip or not to tip the person who
but does his or her duty is a question
recalling an incident set down in Wal
pole's "Reminiscences" of how a king
once unwillingly encouraged the cus
tom. "This is a strange country," com
mented George I. "The first morning
after my arrival at St. Janies I looked
out of the window aud saw a park
with walls, canal, etc., which they told
me were mine. The next day Lord
Chetwyud, the ranger of my park, sent
me a brace of carp out of my canal,
and I was told that I must give 5 guin
eas to Lord Chetwynd's servant for
bringing me my own carp out of my
own canal in my own park!"
The British Const.
The most dangerous part of the
British coast is that between Flam
borough head and the North Fore
land. including as it does both the
Humber and the Thames. The next
most dangerous district is that between
Anglesea and the Mull of Cantyre,
which includes the Mersey and the
Clyde. Next comes that between
Hartland point and St. David's head,
which includes the Bristol channel.
The district between the North Fore
land and St. Catherine's, including, of
course, the strait of Dover, comes but
fourth on the list.
A Washout Victim.
"Say, mister," said the tattered
tramp, "can't youse stake me to er
dime? I'm de victim uv er washout."
"Victim of a washout!" echoed the
portly citizen in evident surprise.
"Dat's wot," rejoined tlie tramp.
"Honest, I ain't had nuthin' but water
ter drink fer more'u ten days."—Chi
cago News.
An Odd Opinion.
Do I believe in putting a stop to
swearing? No. I don't. If you prevent
the workingman from swearing, and
thus relieving his feelings, what will
happen? Why, he will go home and
murder his family.—G. Bernard Shaw.
Might Hnve Been Worse.
Church—I bad to walk the floor all
night with tlie baby. Can you think
of anything worse than that? Gotham
—Yes; you might have married out in
Greenland, where the nights are six
months long.—Yonkers Statesman.
The Best Man nt Ills Wedding:.
Haskins—By the way, who was the
best man at your wedding? Willowby—
The parson seemed to be feeling the
best. You see, it was all profit for him
and no risk whatever.—Boston Tran
script.
A. Ms
pkins & Sons
Start the Net# Year right by
buying your Groceries at
A. HOPKINS &- SONS
We are just entering our sixth
year of business, and to all of our
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ously contributed to make our past
business such an unqualified suc
cess we wish to extend our sincere
thanks. We solicit a continuance
of your valued patronage, with our
assurance of our same fair, just and
upright dealing for the future as in
the past.
A. Hopkins &- Sons
Montana Humber Co
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Easily adjusted and cheaper than the old way.
Montana Lumber Co.
Moore, - Montana
E. L. PATTERSON, Manager
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