Bill Nyes Comic History of England | Page 4

historian at all times to speak unkindly of his ancestors who have now passed on to their reward, he is compelled to admit that as a people the Saxons may be truly characterized as a great National Appetite.
During the palmy days when Rome superintended the collecting of customs and regulated the formation of corporations, the mining and smelting of iron were extensively carried on and the "walking delegate" was invented. The accompanying illustration shows an ancient strike.
[Illustration: DISCOMFORTS OF THE EARLY LABOR AGITATOR.]
Rome no doubt did much for England, for at that time the Imperial City had 384 streets, 56,567 palaces, 80 golden statues, 2785 bronze statues of former emperors and officers, 41 theatres, 2291 prisons, and 2300 perfumery stores. She was in the full flood of her prosperity, and had about 4,000,000 inhabitants.
In those days a Roman Senator could not live on less than $80,000 per year, and Marcus Antonius, who owed $1,500,000 on his inaugural, March 15, paid it up March 17, and afterwards cleared $720,000,000. This he did by the strictest economy, which he managed to have attended to by the peasantry.
Even a literary man in Rome could amass property, and Seneca died worth $12,000,000. Those were the flush times in Rome, and England no doubt was greatly benefited thereby; but, alas! "money matters became scarce," and the poor Briton was forced to associate with the delirium tremens and massive digestion of the Saxon, who floated in a vast ocean of lard and wassail during his waking hours and slept with the cunning little piglets at night. His earthen floors were carpeted with straw and frescoed with bones.
Let us not swell with pride as we refer to our ancestors, whose lives were marked by an eternal combat between malignant alcoholism and trichinosis. Many a Saxon would have filled a drunkard's grave, but wabbled so in his gait that he walked past it and missed it.
[Illustration: THE SAXON IDEA OF HEAVEN.]
To drink from the skulls of their dead enemies was a part of their religion, and there were no heretics among them.[A]
[Footnote A: The artist has very ably shown here a devoted little band of Saxons holding services in a basement. In referring to it as "abasement," not the slightest idea of casting contumely or obloquy on our ancestors is intended by the humble writer of pungent but sometimes unpalatable truth.]
Christianity was introduced into Britain during the second century, and later under Diocletian the Christians were greatly persecuted. Christianity did not come from Rome, it is said, but from Gaul. Among the martyrs in those early days was St. Alban, who had been converted by a fugitive priest. The story of his life and death is familiar.
The Bible had been translated, and in 314 A.D. Britain had three Bishops, viz., of London, Lincoln, and York.

CHAPTER III.
THE ADVENT OF THE ANGLES: CAUSES WHICH LED TO THE REHABILITATION OF BRITAIN ON NEW LINES.
With the landing of Hengist and Horsa English history really begins, for Caesar's capture of the British Isles was of slight importance viewed in the light of fast-receding centuries. There is little to-day in the English character to remind one of Caesar, who was a volatile and epileptic emperor with massive and complicated features.
The rich warm blood of the Roman does not mantle in the cheek of the Englishman of the present century to any marked degree. The Englishman, aping the reserve and hauteur of Boston, Massachusetts, is, in fact, the diametrical antipode of the impulsive, warm-hearted, and garlic-imbued Roman who revels in assassination and gold ear-bobs.
The beautiful daughter of Hengist formed an alliance with Vortigern, the royal foreman of Great Britain,--a plain man who was very popular in the alcoholic set and generally subject to violent lucid intervals which lasted until after breakfast; but the Saxons broke these up, it is said, and Rowena encouraged him in his efforts to become his own worst enemy, and after two or three patent-pails-full of wassail would get him to give her another county or two, until soon the Briton saw that the Saxon had a mortgage on the throne, and after it was too late, he said that immigration should have been restricted.
[Illustration: ROWENA CAPTIVATES VORTIGERN.]
Kent became the first Saxon kingdom, and remained a powerful state for over a century.
More Saxons now came, and brought with them yet other Saxons with yet more children, dogs, vodka, and thirst. The breath of a Saxon in a cucumber-patch would make a peck of pickles per moment.
The Angles now came also and registered at the leading hotels. They were destined to introduce the hyphen on English soil, and plant the orchards on whose ancestral branches should ultimately hang the Anglo-Saxon race, the progenitors of the eminent aristocracy of America.
Let the haughty, purse-proud American--in whose warm life current one may trace the unmistakable