Ancient Of Days

Among the earliest of domesticated animáis are the ox, sheep and swine. Most people suppose these animáis to have been servants of man from time immemorial. They have read of the sacred cattle of ancient Egypt, where the buil was one of the chief sacred symbols of deity, far back in the days of the earliest pyramid builders. They have read of the oxen of Greece and Rome, and how the Roman senate voted to brave Horatiua from the public corn lands, as a reward for his heroic defense of the bridge over the Tiber, "as much as two stroug oxen could plow from morn UU night." And they have read in the early beoks of the Bible how Moses commanded that "thou shalt not nmzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn," and of how the ox ar.id the ass were unequally yoked together. Everybody knows, too, that the sheep i FAMILIAS IN' THE EARLIEST BIBLE RECORDS. Abel tended his flocks and sacrificed a lamb before he was slain by his brother Cain. VVhen Abraham went to sacrifico his son, he saw a ram caught by the horna in a thicket. "Jake played his father-inlaw for a sncker in the increase of the flocks story," as the irreverent commercial traveler stateil it when he was unexpectecüy cal led upon to address a Sunday school. The history of the hog is not so familiar. But the fact that the law of Moses prohibited the eating of pork by the Israelitiea is proof that the hog was a common article of food amid surrounding nations. Homer describes Ulyses as eating pork, and Barnes one of his most faithful friends aa a hog drover or keeper, away back in the earliest dawn of Greek nationality. The hog, as a domestic animal, is mentioned in otber bibles of other religions, older than those of the Hebrews. Bnt these most ancient wrltings and traditions are only tales of yesterday, 60 IMMENSELY OLD 18 THE HUMAN RACB. In the records of science, as in the eye ol deity, ten thousand years are but as a day, and a thonsand years as an hour that is past. Gcologists and biologists have found indisputable proofs that these anims were hunted and eateu by man for ages before they were domesticated. The charred, broken and gnawed bones of roasts from the horse, the ox, the hog and the sheep are found in caves and holes inhabited by prehistorie man in all countrles, alike in those where civilization flrst dawned as in those where it appeared centuries on centuries later. Remains found where there were evidently prehistorie villages nobody knows how long before man began to become civilized - so long ago that their sites are now dug from beneath the everlasting hills, or are pierced by the well borer in the Egyptian desert 60 to 100 feet below the present level of the sand - show that man hunted and ate these animáis IN THE DAYS OF THE MASTODON AND MAMMOTII, in fact before the great ice age sent its gigantic glaciers overEurope and America to plow out the present shape of the continents and créate the world as we now know it, while yet the great desert of Sahara was a foaming sea, and possibly while yet the horse, the ox, the hog and the sheep had three toes on each footl It is a fact also that, even down to thls day, these animáis are hunted and eaten in their wild state, and are not yet domesticated by the most primitivo savage races. And until quite a recent date they were so treated nearly all over Europe. During the early Roman empire, and even up to past the time of Julius Ctesar, wild horses were hunted and eaten in parts of northern Kurope. Wild hogs are even vet hunted in Europe, the wild boar being the noblest prey of the sportsman. The wild ox, down to a period later than the days of Wallace and Bruce, was the fiercest and most dangerous game of Scotland. The wild sheep, where it still lingera, is xceedingly shy, cunning and swift, and a desperate fighter upon occasion, quite different from the familiar type of innocence of our farms. It haunts the upland plains and inaccessible mountains, and braves the iiercest extremes of clirnate with wonderful hardihood and self-reliant energy. HOW DIFFERENT TKT HOW LIKE are these wild animáis and their tame descendant. Domestication has made them mild umi tractable in disposition, and added to their strength and size. Yet, after thousands of years of cultivation by man, it is a curious fact that the animáis have not changed in type, but have actually approached still nearer the true type of each. Place the wild horse, ox, sheep and swine beside their tame brethren, and how unmistakably they are the sanio animáis. The best tame specimen is beyond question nearer the true type intended by nature than the best wild one. This is not so strange, after all. Man has bred the horse all these centuries not to change him to something else, but to make him still more perfectly a horse. Henee he is a more perfect horse, and nearer what maybe deemed nature's ideal horse, of which her wild horse is only the prophecy. And so, also, of the domestic ox, sheep and swine, the uearest to the perfect fis;ure ís found in the tame and not in the wild. Would you see the best types of these animal that can be found in the world - ■ee great numbers of the very choicest and costliest specimens of every breed and variety, from TUK HUOE8T LEVIATHAN OF HIS KIND down to the smallest and most beaciiul pet of the race - see and study them singly and in groups and masses, in great parades and processions and in small family exhibitions- the best place and time you will ever have in your life time are at the great Detroit International Fair and Exposition, Aug. 20 to Sept. 5, which will be the greatest stock show ever held in America. It will also be the greatest dog show, and the greatest poultry, pigeon and bird ghow. Xot only is there beauty in these thinjjcs, but there is more money in breed ing tine stock and fine poultry, and even in pigeons md fancy birds than in perhap? any other things that farmers can take up as an addition to their business. And there will be a world of pleasures, shows, epectacles, concerts, races, sports and games, niagninceut fire works uightly, and all the dellght of a great city and a grand Exposition. Don't miss it.