“186. If a man take a young child as a son, and, when he takes him, he is rebellious toward his father and mother (who have adopted him), that adopted son shall return to the house of his father. “187. One may not bring claim for the son of a NER. SE. GA, who is a palace guard, or the son of a devotee. “188. If an artisan take a son for adoption and teach him his handicraft, one may not bring claim for him.”[140] Coming down to a later period, we may see the influence of other peoples on the Babylonians in the _Assyrian Doomsday Book_ or _Liber Censualis_, copied from the cuneiform tablets of the seventh century, B. C.[141] Sixty-eight families are enumerated in these tablets, and to these sixty-eight husbands there are allotted ninety-four wives. Seventy-four sons are mentioned and only twenty-six daughters, a proportion that is extremely suspicious. That there was no such slaughter of the females as we find in other countries, is shown by the fact that in some of the families enumerated there were as many as three daughters to one son, but the majority of the families were without female children and had one or two sons, an evenness of distribution which would lead one to surmise that the people of the district of Harran, where this census was taken, were regulating the birthrate themselves. Of this period too, is the story of Sargon the younger—a legend that is interesting not alone because of its similarity to that of Moses, but because it shows that this section of the country had also fallen into the ways of the rest of the world. Here, at the time of the legend, it was a common thing for a child to run the risks of exposure and death. As an indication of the conditions a thousand years later, we may take the certificate of adoption cited by Dr. Rogers, of the time of King Kurigalzu who reigned in Babylon from about 1390 B. C. to 1375. “Ina-Uruk-rishat, daughter of (mu) shallim, had no daughter and therefore she adopted Etirtu, daughter of Ninib-mushallim, as her daughter. Seven shekels of gold she gave. She may give her to a husband, she may appoint her a temple slave, _but_ she may not make her a servant. If she does make her a servant, Etirtu shall go to her father’s house. As long as Ina-Uruk-rishat lives, Etirtu shall pay her reverence. When Ina-Uruk-rishat dies, Etirtu, as her daughter, shall offer the water libation. If Ina-Uruk-rishat should say, ‘Thou art not my daughter,’ she shall lose the gold which she has paid. If Etirtu should say, ‘Thou art not my mother,’ she shall become a servant. There shall no claim be made. Before Ellil, Ninib, Nusku, and King Kurigalzu they have made oath together.