17th December 2007, 2:22 PM
I think that's the joke. It's all modern day equivilants, except you still have to use a gun to hunt prey in the wild. An alternative would be if you had to buy oxen for some reason. It makes no sense, hense, comedy!
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)