Rh
dh. XVI., NO. XXXV
ESTABLISHED IN 1886
PRICE FIVE CENTS
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LINCOLN, NEBR., SATURDAY. AUGUST 31, 1901.
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THE COURIER,
EinuDin ni rosTomci at Lincoln as
afVUUW UAaaoo Jv .
PUBLISHED EVEBY SATURDAY
TIE CM81E8 niRTIlY UD POBLISilK GO
Office 1132 N street, Up Stairs.
Telephone 384.
SARAH B. HARRIS, : ': : EDITOR
Stsfcscnption Rates.
Per annum...., W 50
Six months 1 00
Rebate of fifty ccats oa'cash payments.
8infle copies s..-.k . 05
Tm Coutnavwill not be responsible for rol
nUrreoauaoBiemtfoB eBlewiBeoapanied by
"ccaoBnalftatkMU, to 'rehire attention, must
be sinned by tnefull aame of the writer, not
sserehr as naraatee of food faith, bat for
amblfeatioa if advisable.
OBSERVATIONS.
ADryOven.
Germs propagate and grow rapidly
in a warm, moist' air,. Tbey avoid hot,
dry air. when possible Among these
small individuals Nebraska has a poor
reputation. This summer has been
fatal to all microbes who distrusted
the premonitory signs of a yery dry,
hot summer. The superstitious
microbes migrated, the rest stayed
and were baked in a dry oven until
their graceful forms ceased to quiver
under the microscope. Consequently in
this region for three months there
has been little acute illness. No red,
yellow or blue quarantine cards have
been hung on-the houses.
The grasses withered and the pas
tures could not satisfy the cattle. For
the first time in a decade Nebraska
cattle feeders had to feed their stock
hay and more expensive fare. But it
is an ill wind still that blows nobody
good, anr the pollen that dried. up be
fore it was ready to be blown into
eyes and throats has saved the season,
now so nearly over, from universal and
unqualified execration.
The chronic hay-fever sufferers are
singing paeans. The general drought
has spread even to their countenances.
Their eyes are not the head waters of
little streams. They lie down at
night without suffocation, neither do
they use a dozen handkerchiefs a day
and need two dozen. Hay-fever vic
tims who board are not obliged to ask
in the hearing of an easily-amused
table-full for puddig when thev mean
pudding. This summer they have
sounded the Veil dees" and "en gees"
of our far-flung tongue as perfectly as
though the vegetable world were
frozen instead of dried up. "Ell dees"
and "en gees" are just asdear to these
summer im-patlents as they are to us,
and it is a sad parting that the for
mer takes of these particular wedded
consonants every recurring mid-summer
season. Christian sympathy,
natural affection and a universal pref
erence for the beautiful incline other
people - to forget the barren harvest
fields and to rejoice with, those mem
bers of the family.who for one summer
have enjoyed a reprieve. A desperate
case of hay-fever in the family or the
neighborhood is a draught upon sym
pathy as well as the cherished love of
the beautiful. The sufferings of next
summer's pollen can be assuaged both
by the current sympathy and by the
supply stored and not consumed in
the summer of 1901.
Lessons of the Boer War.
Small, compact nations like Switz
erland, which have been afraid of ab;
sorption by greedy, stronger neigh
bors, are much relieved by the object
lesson of the Boer war. A group of
twenty men armed with long-range
rifles firing smokeless powder car
tridges can easily pick off a battalion.
The disadvantage is entirely, on the
side of the invaders. Victory is not
so much a question of bravery though
the Boers are not cowards, as it is of a
plentiful supply of ammunition and
an impenetrable, rocky ambuscade.
Natives having the advantage utt, a
topographical knowledge of their own
country and well armed can repulse
the strongest nation "in Europe or
Asia. If the Chinese were an observ
ing people and not so self-satisfied be
cause of the accomplishments and
achievements of their remote ances
tors, it is certain that this lesson of a
few Boer farmers, well armed with
long-distance repeating rifles and
smokeless powder, would impress tl:em
with their own potential strength.
Neither Russia nor England nor
France nor Japan, nor all four com
bined, could take Manchuria or Mon
golia if the Chinese were united, prop
erly armed and modern fighters. They
have the advantage in numbers, their
country produces food enough to feed
the army and the laborers too, and
they are not cowards no fatalists are
cowards.
The foreigners in China are con
fined to the coasts, except in the case
of the Russians along the northern
frontier. Foreign knowledge of the
interior of China is vague, and if the
subtle Chinese could add smokeless
powder, Boer indomitableness and a
comprehension of the strength of
their enemies to their agricultural
resources, they would be invincible
and their kingdom would remain
whole.
M. Jean de Bloch, the foremost au
thority on modern warfare, recently
declared in a lecture delivered in Lon
don that the results or the Transvaal
war were not due to the defects in the
British army, but to the constant im
possibility of determining the enemy's
position. He said further that the
boasted German methods of attack
would have broken down under simi
lar conditions.
The close formation is obsolete ab
solutely. Books on military tactics
and maneuvers written before the
Boer war are useless except as It is
ornamental for the soldier to know
complex military maneuvers for the
sake of dress parade and grand reviews.
It is supremely necessary that the
soldier should be an expert long dis
tance marksman. Experience in
stalking deer where he has learned to
crawl noiselessly along the ground
for miles, taking advantage of every
rock and depression, is more valuable
to the modern private than to be
drill-perfect.
Lord Roberts said that when he
went to South Africa be issued a gen
eral order that the men in attacking
files were to be six paces apart. Very
soon the distance was increased to
ten paces and then to twenty. Guns,
lances and belts were painted khaki
so as to Increase the Invisibility of the
troops. Khaki is the color of the
African landscape. Like the chame
leon, troops should be clothed in the
color of the background against which
they are to fight, especially when the
enemy is securely hidden behind
rocks and armed with long-distance
rifles that shoot smokeless powder.
M. de Bloch, who is a Russian and
no fonder of the English than other
Russians, said that the English are
not to be blamed for the long deferred
victories in the Transvaal, nor are the
Boers to be extravagantly praised for
any exceptional military or personal
qualities. He said that "the results in
South Africa are wholly due to smoke
less powder and long-range, quick-tiring
rifles which involve dispersion
and invisibility to a degree unheard
of formerly, and to the possibi'ity of
putting a large number of cartridges
at the disposal of one rifleman."
The few that held the pass at
Thermopylae were aided by their posi
tion. Only a few at a time could op
pose them and those few who went to
force the pass and were killed in
heaps, were just as brave as the de
fenders. The lesson of the Boer war
will strengthen every small nation in
the world. Perhaps the lesson was
needed. At any rate William of Ger
many has been more thoughtful ever
since the war began.
To keep their empire intact, of
course the Chinese need something
more than modern arms and modern
methods and clever generals. The
nation itself and all the individuals
composing it must be exasperated
into a passionate patriotism and a
minute-man eagerness to protect the
country and prevent its partition.
The civilized world has accepted a
future in which parts of China have
been seized and settled upon by Rus
sia, England, Germany, France and
Japan. But it is not so certain. The
Boxer uprising was a symptom of
awakened, mad patriotism, and the
inconceivably great empire may yet
protect herself.
France has just lessened her term
of military service from three to two
years and Germany is considering the
subject of lessening hers. The con
scription or compulsory military ser
vice is driving young men out of
Germany and oat of France, and if
tbe elaborate military tactics arc to
be dispensed with, it will not take so
long for men just to shoot straights
The Boers never learned tactics, but
tbey learned to shoot when very
young. It will not be necessary tq
make target practice compulsory,.
Every boy who can get a gun and is
allowed to use it, will learn to shoot T
J J
Debts of Hoaor.
Maurus Jukai, the Hungarian nov
elist, is already familiar to Eng
lish readers through translations of
"A Hungarian Nabob," "The Name
less Castle," "The Lion of Janina"
and others. "Debts of Honor" Is bis
latest story to be translated.
There is a pessimism and constitu
tional melancholy that Is. peculiarly
Slavonic. As far apart as Tolstoy
and Jokai are in literary art an
style, in the unilluminated blackness
ol their view of life and the future, of
the worth of effort and of the inef
fectualness of religion and of the
mistake of having been born at allr
Tolstoy and Jokai resemble each oth
er as the darkness of one moonless,,
starless night resembles the darkness
of another moonless, starless night.
Somewhere a very good book sug
gests that it is well for the children
of men to weep with those who weep
and mourn with those who mourn;
but mourning except for one's own
private poignant and inextinguishable
grief, does not long endure. The sor
rows of the world and of collective
man are so huge, when contemplated
as a whole, the life of one man from
birth to death is so full of grief that
when the ennui, the endless repeti
tions, the illnesses of his life are con
sidered and summarized in a book, to
road it does but add to bis burdens
The twelve hours of activity in real"
life are separated by eight-hour
periods of unconsciousness and rest,
from which man awakens refreshed
and encouraged, with new inspiration'
for the new day.
In a realistic atorj which relates a
man's life from boyhood to old age,
we get the effect of the disappoint
ments, we feel the weight of life; but.
the periods of unconsciousness, the re
inspiration of sleep, the scent of the
morning, the depth and height of the
sky, the soaring liquid song dropping
from Immeasurable ether to earth,
have not their full value. Consequent
ly the old fairy stories where tailors
marry princesses and ugly ducklir.gs
are swans, are more true to life than
Ibsen's plays or Tolstoy's novels.
It is so much easier to describe and
communicate sorrow. Joy and the-
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