Waste Paper and Books
OF course, it is not precisely waste paper ; for, if paper was invented, it had not come so far West. It was waste papyrus, of no interest to anybody ; so it was used in preparing mummy cases, or thrown out. But Time has its revenges. What is one generation's solemn covenant is another's " scrap of paper," as we remember too well ; and conversely one genera- tion's waste paper may be posterity's history.
For what is history ? When we began to learn, it was battles and dates and wives of Kings, " 1066 and all that." Even then J. R. Green was advocating a more excellent way. But to this day we hardly realize the curious little reactions of ordinary life that make history ; the scholastic type will dismiss them as gossip. But the foreigner who travels in America, if he has half an eye, realizes quickly that he has far more to learn from the rubbishy advertisements in the weekly magazines than from anything else in them ; the stories are all of cowboys, of bandits and remarkable shopgirls, none of whom you meet in real life ; but the advertisements let you see that " life is real, life is earnest," built up on bathroom furniture, subscription books, halitosis and B.O. (the last two we do not translate). We all know in England everything there is to know (and more) about Prohibition ; but who realizes the part that ice-cream and soda-fountains played in its enactment—or the negro's fancy for a razor for his inadequate beard ? History is made by a myriad things " beneath the dignity of history."
Professor Hunt tells us that the private documents, found on old papyrus, and now in print, number something in five figures ; and in a new Loeb volume he gives us, with the co-operation of Mr. C. C. Edgar, formerly of the Cairo Museum, two hundred specimens. These documents range in date over something like a thousand years, and Juvenal himself hardly offers such a farrago. Here is a cook's bill for a month, for instance. The month is Thoth, and the bill runs : " 4th 4 lbs. of meat, 2 trotters, 1 tongue, 1 snout ; 6th half a head with a tongue ; 11th 2 lbs. of meat, 1 tongue, 2 kidneys ; 12th 1 lb. of meat, 1 breast " ; and so on, and plenty of it, utterly domestic. Then creditors, " pitiless and godless men," carry off a poor debtor's " very clothes that cloak his shame," and take his children, " mere infants at that." A contract is made for a woman in a village to suckle an infant foundling for sixteen months, this child exclusively, and no pregnancy to take place. A schoolboy (not the famous one) writes to know when his father is coming ; his education depends on it ; he sends " many salutations to all, each by name, with those who love us "—very correctly ; and then a cry from the heart, remember our pigeons." A man writes that the hippopotami have so far done no damage ; but, if they start meddling, he will attend to them ; and he would like some money sent, with nails and a jar of gum. Three ladies, all Persians, sell some land, and their personal appear- ance is given to make things surer ; all three are " of medium heigi't, fair-skinned, round-faced, and straight-nosed " (this is very attractive) and two have a sear each on the forehead but Siephmous has " no distinctive mark." The famous letter of 'Marion to Alis is given, as it should be—" if by chance you bear a child, if it is a boy, let it be ; if it is a girl, throw it out. How can I forget you ? I beg you then not to be anxious." But in general the documents given are not easily accessible, as in other selections.
T. R. GLOVER.
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