Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1899 — BOOKKEEPING IN BABYLONIA. [ARTICLE]

BOOKKEEPING IN BABYLONIA.

Imperishable Records of an Ancient Business Firm. Paper and ink are perishable things, like certain otber “modern improvements,” bat some of the clay tablets used by earlier civilizations still survive. In the buried city of Nippur American explorers have recently found In one room more than seven hundred of them, the business records of a rich firm of merchants, Ulurashu Sons. These documents are dated in the reigns of Artaxerxes I. (465-425 B. C.) and Darius 11. (423-405 B. C.). The tables are of various sizes, some resembling tbe ordinary cake of soap of commerce. They are covered with cuneiform characters, clear and distinct as when tbe bookkeepers of Ulurashu Inscribed them, twenty-five hundred years ago. Among them is this guaranty for twenty years that an emerald is so well set that it will not fall out: “Bel-ahlddina and Bel-shumu, sons of Bel, and Hatln, son of Bazuzu, spoke unto Bel-nadinsbumu, son of Morashn, as follows: 'As concerns tbe gold ring set with an emerald, we guarantee that for twenty years the emerald will not fall out of ring. If it should fail out before the expiration of twenty years, Bel-ahiddina (and the two others) shall pay to Bel-nadinsbumu an indemnity of ten mana of silver.’ ” Then follow the names of seven witnesses and of an official who is described as “tbe scribe of tbe Concordance of Proper Names.” Tbe document concludes with the thumb-nail marks of the contracting parties. There are also leases of various kinds and contracts for tbe sale of sun-dried bricks and otber mercbandlse, and for the loan oLjeed corn and oxen for plowing. Queen’s Dress Old-Fashioned. Queen Victoria has a horror of velvet and cannot bear to touch it None of the furniture In the royal palaces is covered with the fabric, and all her Majesty’s gowns are made of the richest silks and brocades, but no velvet Is ever permitted to be among them. For over thirty years tbe Queen, has never changed her cut or style of dress. She wears the same fashions as when tbe Prince Consort died, and probably nothing would persuade her to alter tbe custom now and don fashionable raiment. At tbe last jubilee her daughters were able to modify the sleeves of their mother’s “procession” dress and to get her into a bonnet that was actually becoming, but now she has gone back to tbe Old styles, and no one can make her budge. Tbe materials used to make up these dowdy clothes are tbe richest and finest to be procured in- London shops, and, when ornamented with tbe splendid laces and embroideries in the Queen's possession, Victoria does not look otherwise than queenly, even If her figure has been wickedly described as a feather bed tied in the middle. But then she la privileged to go without any ahapa.,