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MRAP Directory 03
Page 04
There is a curly retriever at Arundel bearing the name of "Shock," which sets an example of good manners and intelligence to the animals which are not dumb. He carries the cat of the stables tenderly in his mouth, and would carry the kitten, but at present the kitten prefers its own means of locomotion. When Sanger's elephant got into trouble in the river Arun, this wise Shock was sent to turn him out, and his perseverance succeeded. He often will insist on carrying a bundle of umbrellas to the station, and safely he delivers them to their owners, and then, with many wags of his brown tail, he demands a halfpenny for his trouble. This halfpenny he carries to the nearest shop, lays it on the counter, and receives his biscuit in return. Need we say this dog has a kind, sensible master?
The matrimonial stone was interesting enough. It was a double vessel carved out of a solid stone, a perforation being made in the partition between the two vessels. It seems, when marriages were performed, that the Incas placed a red liquid in one vessel and some water in the other, the perforation in the central partition being stopped up until the ceremony took place, when the liquids were allowed to mingle in emblem of the union of the two lives. Curious, too, was the pipe-like arrangement, called the _kenko_, ornamented with a carved jaguar head, also used at their marriage ceremonies.
The leaders of the popular party perceived the mistake they had made in alienating the Italians from their cause, and they now secured their adhesion by offering them the Roman citizenship if they would support the Agrarian Law. As Roman citizens they would, of course, be entitled to the benefits of the law, while they would, at the same time, obtain what they had so long desired--an equal share in political power. But the existing citizens, who saw that their own importance would be diminished by an increase in their numbers, viewed such a proposal with the utmost repugnance. So strong was their feeling that, when great numbers of the Italians had flocked to Rome in B.C. 126, the Tribune M. Junius Pennus carried a law that all aliens should quit the city.
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