THE BRONZE AXE. 



There is always a certain fascination in beginning a 

 subject at the wrong end and working backward : it has 

 the charm which inevitably attaches to all evil practices ; 

 you know you oughtn't, and so you can't resist the 

 temptation to outrage the proprieties and do it. I can't 

 myself resist the temptation of beginning this article 

 where it ought to break off — with Chinese money, which 

 is not the origin, but the final outcome and sole remain- 

 ing modern representative of that antique and almost 

 prehistoric implement, the Bronze Age hatchet. 



Improbable and grotesque as this afQliation sounds at 

 first liearing, it is, nevertheless, about as certain as any 

 other fact in anthropological science — which isn't, per- 

 haps, saying a great deal. The familiar little brass 

 cash, with the square hole for stringing them together 

 on a thread in the centre, well known to the frequenter 

 of minor provincial museums, are, strange to say, the 

 lineal descendants, in unbroken order, of the bronze axe 

 of remote Celestial ancestors. From the regular hatchet 

 to the modern coin one can trace a distinct, if somewhat 

 broken, succession, so that it is impossible to say where 



