still flourish in all kinds of forms and disguises. But at the same time we are surprised to see that among certain nations the members of the fair sex enjoy already the same respect and almost a similar amount of rights and liberty, as our women possess to-day.
Modern archæologists are inclined to recognize those formerly fertile lands between the Persian Gulf and Asia Minor, and watered by the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, as the "Cradle of Civilization," or the place, where in misty ages, before history began, the so-called Sumerians, a Semitic people, first attempted to form themselves into organized communities. According to the traditions of the Hebrews here was the original home of the human race, the "Garden of Eden." and here was, as is told in Genesis XI, "that men said one to another: 'Go to, let us build a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'"
This city was called Babylon, and the country Babylonia. Wonderful stories and legends are connected with these two names, but still more astounding are the revelations unearthed by the pick and shovel of modern explorers. By their diligent work it has been discovered that the people, living in this region somewhere about 4,000 to 6,000 years B. C. were already a highly organized and civilized race, skilled in various trades and professions, and living in towns of considerable size and importance. The inhabitants of these cities were by no means awkward in the fine arts. Most important of all, they had already evolved a very complete and highly developed system of writing, which in itself must have taken many centuries to reach the stage at which it was found by the explorers.
As may be read in the elaborate works of Maspero, Hilprecht and other explorers, they discovered in the ruins of the principal cities of Babylonia several ancient libraries and archives containing thousands of tablets of clay, stone and bronze, covered with inscriptions of religious, astrological and magical texts, epics, chronicles and syllabaries. There are also contracts; records of debts; leases of lands, houses and slaves; deeds of transfer of all kinds of property; mortgages; documents granting power of attorney; tablets dealing with bankruptcy and inheritance; in fact, almost every imaginable kind of deed or contract is found among them.
The most precious relic is the famous Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylonia. This collection of laws, engraved on stone 2,250 years B. C. and now preserved in the Louvre, is so elaborate and systematic that it can hardly have been the first one. Back of it there must have been a long period of
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