4 Conservative.
who have no regimental colors and no
emblazoned role of glory.It
It was not long
THE ANGEL OF oforo tlmfc hovel
ith itg lend of
misery began to soften its more glaring
and gaping horrors. A blanket was
thrown over the disjecta membra , and
blankets somehow crept under and over
the men. The importunate tone of
the sufferers fell , as if bandages got
upon their words as well as upon their
wounds. I shall never forget the sensa
tion as a till cup of iced water was held
to my lips. Its coolness and qucnchncss
( pardon that homely term for it ) were
somehow related in my mind to the
woman herself , and I never afterwards
encountered one of those hospital nurses
without that association of her with a
cool and healing draught.
A great many of these nurses were
Christian women , whose great propul
sion through blood and fire was the
umittered desire to do their Master's
work. Under Sherman's command
many of them were hooded Sisters , he
having enrly hi the conflict , before
the Sanitary Commission organized
its superb work , encountered another
laud of woman , who wrote let
ters of complaint to the newspapers
and was annoyingly garrulous and of
ficious. But these Sisters never com
plained ; never in any extremity of de
privation , or violence , or mismanage
ment overstepped the taciturn discre
tion and steadfast routine of mercy
they had set for themselves. But of
whatever sect , those of them who pro
fessed a religion of love had their re
lapses at time , when the feminine fibre
gave way in secret and they poured
then ? hearts out in unavailing tears at
the pity of it all. Only the finest organ
ization is entitled to enter the lists of
those living martyrs , and it is only the
finest organization that must bear
through it all the crown of thorns hi
her heart.
I said to one of these women after
wards at the Mound City Hospital ,
"How do you stand it ? " and she an
swered , "Oh , we go away and pray and
weep where nobody can see us but God. "
Thus they were invisibly panoplied.
I meant to have
THE BLIND
m
HORROR OF WAR.
hogpital
experience , when the angel of mercy
was reaching down into a torn and
scarcely recognizable mass of humanity
for the spark of consciousness that re
mained , a shell burst through the roof
and obliterated both the nurse and the
patient , and how , for a moment , those
of us who escaped and crawled out
of the added wreck had one common
thought , which was that those inhuman
energies that man sets in motion smite
at times with indiscriminate irony all
the puny efforts that man brings xip
afterwards to remedy and correct.
But what is the use ? When man
resorts to brute force to demonstrate
his higher virtues , or to convince his
fellow-man , he summons agencies whose
vast virulence ho can boast of , but
whoso effects upon the individual ho
dare not write about.
Once the hospital was set on fire.
Everything favored its burning before
we could drag the mutilated but living
bodies out. It was old and diy , and fes
tooned with bunches of inflammable hay
high up among its rafters. The sur
geons' instruments were scattered.
Mercy itself seemed to receive a sud
den interdict and resolve itself into
a frenzy of desperate fear. And always
at the best of times the provisions of
mercy were not as effective as the
prompt and thundering provisions of
what was meant to be justice. I recall
that there was always something miss
ing in the sudden emergency until those
commission wagons came to the rescue.
And by and by they grew to be part of
the system. They were woman's con
tribution to the war , and woman gen
erally came with them. How much
heroism and patience and fortitude she
lent to the struggle , coming like a beu-
isou to offset physical failure with moral
strength , has hardly been told in the
official records. Why should it be ?
War , for the most part , deals with what
has been called , with true mediaeval
brutality , "iron and blood. "
J. P. M.
WHAT HISTORY SHOWS.
China , paper money unre
deemed $ 644,135,500
France , by her assignats 9,000,000,000
The Continental Congress
and States 451,000,000
The Southern Confederacy
about 1,000,000,000
Argentina , to 1896 155,841,000
Absolutelosstothepeoplell,250,976,500
Besides untold millions of unredeemed
bank notes.
MORAL Unsecured ' 'fiat "
: or money"
is dishonest money , and a fraud upon
the public ,
The biographies of the thoughtful
working men.and women who , wisely
industrious , lay the foundations of a
commonwealth make a complete liistory
of the state.
ASIATIC COMMERCE An open port
A DELUSION. in the Philip
pines would , it is urged , give our ex
porters a fulcrum for obtaining im
mense benefits from the Asiatic trade ,
says Worthiugton C. Ford in the Sep
tember Atlantic. In support of this
view the experience of the English in
Hong Kong is accepted as conclusive.
The plea is on its face a promising one.
The value of imports into China from
Hong Kong has nearly trebled since
1881 , and the same rate of increase has
held for exports from China to the free
port. The transactions of Japan with
Hong Kong have nearly doubled , and
are increasing each year at a rapid rate ,
So far , the record is clear , and points to
the advantages of a free or open port.
No light is thrown on the principal
point to bo determined : How far has
England , or the United States , or Ger
many benefited by this increase ?
The exports of British goods to this
Asiatic port have fallen off in value by
one-half since 1881 , and the imports by
one-third. The entire trade forms but
a very small item in the total move
ment of England's foreign commerce.
The United States might be looked upon
as somewhat more favored than the
United Kingdom in its trade relations
with the East , but it has not derived
material benefit from this development
of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong figures in the total trade
of the United States for less than four-
tenths of one per cent a proportion
hardly worth considering. Even Ger
many , with its restless and pushing
commercial policy , passes over Hong
Kong , and seeks to build up its interests
hi China itself , with only partial suc
cess. In the face of such a showing ,
covering a series of years marked by an
almost phenomenal increase in the
world's commerce , it is difficult to
accept the theory of a free port in the
Philippines as an agency to increase the
importance of the United States in the
East. Asia is feeding Asiatic trade ,
and will continue to do so without re
spect to any outside agency. Asia
must cease to be Asia before the West
can participate in its development.
If by some gigantic calamity , capital
be stricken out of the world , the mental
and moral machinery of mankind will
be dashed to pieces and all civilization
thrown off the track.
[ Prom Chicago Times-Herald , August 25. ]
TEACHING THE .
USES OF BANKS , interesting feature
of the meeting of
the American Bankers' Association at
Denver was the report of "the commit
tee on uses of banks. " This committee
undertook some time ago to distribute
information as to the uses of banks in
order to overcome the ignorance concerning -
corning banks and to remove the preju
dice that exists against them.
The wonder is that the bankers of
the country did not inaugurate a con
certed movement of this kind long ago.
That there is a prejudice among the
wage-earning classes , amounting in
some sections to uncompromising hos
tility , against baulcs is admitted by all
who keep in touch with the sentiments
and thoughts of these people.
The populists are not the only ones
who believe that the banks are a form
of legalized plunder organized under
government protection for enriching the
few at the expense of the many.
Strange to say there has been little
organized effort in the past on the part
of the bankers to combat this growing
prejudice through education of the people
ple regarding the exact functions of the