While visiting Naples last fall, I took a great interest in the
wonderful museum there, of objects that have been exhumed from the
ruins of Pompeii. It is a remarkable collection, including, among
other things, the cumbersome machinery of a large woolen factory,
the receipts, contracts, statements of sales, etc., etc., of bankers,
brokers, and usurers. I was told that the exhumist also ran into an
Etruscan bucket-shop in one part of the city, but, owing to the long dry
spell, the buckets had fallen to pieces.
The object which engrossed my attention the most, however, was what
seems to have been a circular issued prior to the great volcanic vomit
of 79 A. D., and no doubt prior even to the Christian era. As the date
is torn off, however, we are left to conjecture the time at which it
was issued. I was permitted to make a copy of it, and with the aid of my
hired man I have translated it with great care.
[Illustration: 0079]