Had Smith and Tupper been contemporaries the iron deeds of the
former would doubtless have been recorded in the golden pages of the
latter, to the incalculable enrichment of Roman history.
Strangely unimpressible indeed must be the mind which, looking backward
through the mists of the centuries upon the primitive race from which we
are believed to have sprung, can repress a feeling of sympathetic
interest. The names of John Smith and Martin Farquhar Tupper, blazoned
upon the page of that dim past and surrounded by the lesser names of
Shakspar, the first Neapolitan, Oliver Cornwell, that Mynheer Baloon who
was known as the Flying Dutchman, Julia Caesar, commonly known as the
Serpent of the Nile--all these are richly suggestive. They call to mind
the odd custom of wearing "clothes"; the incredible error of Copernicus
and other wide and wild guesses of ancient "science"; the lost arts of
telegramy, steam locomotion, printing, and the tempering of iron. They set
us thinking of the zealous idolatry that led men on pious pilgrimages to
the accessible regions about the north pole and into the then savage
interior of Africa in search of the fountain of youth. They conjure up
visions of bloodthirsty "Emperors," tyrannical "Kings," vampire
"Presidents," and robber "Parliaments"--grotesque and horrible shapes in
terrible contrast with the serene and benign figures and features of our
modern Smithocracy.
Let us to-day rejoice and give thanks to Bungoot that the old order of
things has passed forever away.
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