Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1883 — Queer, Very Queer, Discoveries. [ARTICLE]

Queer, Very Queer, Discoveries.

The excavations made at the city of Herculaneum, buried beneath a shower of volcanic ashes in the year A, D. 79, unfold a great many curious facts, showing that city life 1,800 years ago was very similar to what it is now. There were theaters, gymnasiums, public baths and libraries, same as we have now. There was a base-ball ground, too, and the remains of a man supposed to have been an umpire in a close game, were found buried under the home plate. The score of the last game played between the Pompeii shows they were the “worst kickers out of jail.” We are informed that a telephone has recently been discovered with the following words congealed and petrified in the mouth-piece: “Hello! Hello! That you, wife ? All right. Say, wife, I can’t come—hello, hello there—well, don’t stand so close to the microphone —I say I can’t come home to .dinner. ” “Oh, Charley, why not? You know you promised.” “Yes, I know, but I’ve got business of importance; by-by.” In an adjoining room the skeleton of a man supposed to be Charley was found sitting at a card table with four, others, holding in his bony fingers an ace full on queens. Another curious find was in the house of a plumber, where three bathtubs full of gold coin, greenbacks and government bonds were turned up in a cellar. But one of' the most striking and pathetic Illustrations of the similarity of these old days to- our own, was in the discovery of a skeleton standing before a door, still holding a night-key in close proximity to the key-hole, which for 1,800 years he had searched for in vain. An empty flask in the doorway told the sad tale. He had been out with the boys.— Cincinnati Saturday Night. Of late years the employment of women as clerks has greatly increased in England as well as in France, and in both countries it is generally agreed that the system works satisfactorily.