tnU 1 .
1 I
Conservative.
words were between his teeth , "destiny"
was preparing us a new birth : "Wo
went to war , with an evil nation"
"now lands west and oast" and , of
course , "Wo must account for thorn be
fore God and man , at our national
peril. " Impressive , how religious people
grow , when they have occasion for their
neighbors' goods. And thereupon , all
our homo politics being a carnival of
grime and plunder , we must ordain a
pure colonial regime , which the people
can have if they demand it. Now it is
not our intention to argue this question
really wo do not feel capable of it ; we
would only wish it inspected , exactly as
presented. Our political life is so foul
that few care to enter it : what remedy ?
Oast the beam out of our own eyes , one
would suppose ; if 70,000,000 of our own
people have worked out this result over
y,000,000 square miles , how many more
cities shall we be ruler over for our puri
fication ? Which rule must proceed from
that same political life. This is no car
icature ; thoughtful men wo have heard
before , on the same line of reasoning , if
such it can be called. Stewards of a
grand estate proving drunken and thiev
ing , give them smaller ones beyond ,
with an awful vow that there they are
to be sober and honest.
There are cases in which the opposite
order of progress may have a chance of
success. A youth of boundless fire and
capacity , cooped within oppressive
limits , may be obstreperous and mis
chievous , iintil given some larger field
he may develop nobly. This is in a
figure the actual history of England.
But the "opportunities" she found
abroad , we had at home ; and this is
what we made of them , according to
these instructors.
Here we find ourselves once more in
that eternal "hole" that sinks such
quantities of good intention , and even
of honest effort imitation. To do the
same that others have done , instead of
as they have done , but according to our
own condition this is one of the "last
infirmities. ' ' Suppose I am at any trade ,
let it be a cartoonist , and mean to bo the
greatest in the world. The present
greatest cartoonist has reached his pin
nacle and stamped his immortal genius ,
in the perpetual travesty of Mr. States
man's nose. No art has ever rivalled
that embellishment. Do I then proceed
with that same nose , and that same tra
vesty , to outdo or resemble my prede
cessor ? If no genius at all , that is what
I am likely to do ; for then , I can only
think in forms of what has already been
done. But if I have any ability of my
own , I will find work of my own to do ,
not the repetition of another's. When
the imperialist aspiration is delved to
the bottom , this is likely to be the root
of it the impulse to do what England
has done , and because she has done it ;
not to find our own proper doing.
One nation does her work by vast ex
tent upon the territories of the world ,
like ancient Rome or modern England ,
and her historical effect is great. An
other sits apart , a grain among the
nations , making it her virtue to abjure
all nlliance , almost all relation with
thorn ; and her historical effect , at least
by any regard to size or numbers , is far
greater : none has penetrated and leav
ened humanity like the Hebrews from
their solitude. Each finds its own , and
learns what growth belongs to itwhat is
mere excrescence. We have sought to
indicate from time to time what the
finding of America might bo , material
and spiritual ; it is a vast subject , good
for an illimitable future ; and it seems
to us quite as inspiring as the most
wholesale slaughter of our last year's
trusting allies in the Philippines.
There is expansion when the tadpole
becomes a frog , and there is expansion
when the frog would become an ox.
But the inward phase , the ethic stand
point , is different. In the first expan
sion the creature sought not and knew
not its destiny , but only grew its proper
stature ; in the other , a big bull , parad
ing before it , had but excited vain envy ,
and suicidal imitation.
Colonel Hender-
A SKEI > Y . .
SPEAKKK.son has always
been an enthusias
tic advocate of the free distribution of
seeds by congressmen , and his constitu
ents have been highly favored in this
regard. His known fondness for a joke
has made him the subject of consider
able banter upon this line , and he has
probably stood more ridicule upon the
free seed fad than other congressmen.
One of Colonel Henderson's postal-cards
anent this topic , in a woman's hand
writing , bore this message :
"John's influence can't be got with
15 cents' worth of free seeds , but if you
will send me a box of hairpins , I will
look after him. His wife. ' '
Another communication read :
"Why not let up on seeds for a while
and send jack-knives ? Everybody could
use them , and there would not be so
much waste. In that case radish seeds
would not come up poor turnips , and
the congressman would bo saved much
ridicule which he now often gets. "
SALE OF A ItUSKIN MS. OF J HJUJ.
There has just been sold in Sheffield ,
a Buskin manuscript of 1880 , when the
great critic was only sixteen or seven
teen years old. The essay "Does the
perusal of works of fiction act favor
ably on the moral character ? " was dis
covered in the desk of his tutor , Dean
Dale , after his death. It was stated to
be probaby the earliest Rnskin MS. ever
offered for sale. Mr. Scharratt became
the purchaser at 22. Westminster
Gazette.
thafc a11 '
country papers
have gotten into the way of buying a
largo share of their reading matter in
the form of ready-mado plates , which
are put together by concerns organized
for the purpose in the cities and sold by
the foot , there oftentimes results the
curious phenomenon of matter going up
to the city as news , being there em
bodied in those wholesale plates , and
sent back to the place where it origin
ated. Wo admit with regret that our
homo papers habitually publish tele
grams from Nebraska City , which
are some days old and treat of
matters already fully handled in those
papers ; this is of course due to the
practice in question , and to the exer
cise tu n wisu irugajity , wmcii
forbids anything being thrown away
which has been paid for and can fill
up space. Even The Atchison Globe ,
the most carefully edited of the smaller
good papers of the West , and whicli has
an especial abhorrence of shams , is
sometimes betrayed into giving a second
publication to some of its widely-quoted
bright sayings , which have come back
to it in the manner mentioned. And it
is not very long since a careless foreman
of The Globe allowed himself to include
in his day's make-up a plate biography
of The Globe's editor , which was dis
tinctly laudatory in character and in
cluded a portrait. This was s6 revolt
ing to the editor's idea of the good , the
true and the beautiful that he published
an abject apology in his next issue.
THE CONSERVATIVE employed some
plate-matter in its first few numbers ,
while it was gathering momentum , and
suffered the humiliation of seeing some
of that neutral stuff quoted as from TIIE
CONSERVATIVE , and commented on as
representing the sentiments of THE
CONSERVATIVE'S editor.
A writer in J. Sterling Morton's paper
unearths with seine exultation an ex
tract from a letter of Thomas Jefferson
in which the great democrat says that
if men and women could be bred with a
view to race improvement it would be
the real means of a nobler earth by the
production of a race of aristocrats to
rule. This , the gleeful writer con
trasts with the remark of Colonel
Bryan that "the great common people
do not need any particular class to tell
them what to do. " The probabilities
are that , when addressing the honest
yeomanry at the hustings , Jefferson
said the same thing as Colonel Bryan.
There's a big difference between public
speeches and private letters. Kansas
City Star.
Public affairs should be administered ,
with the same deliberation , carefulness ,
caution and economy which bring suc
cess and fortune in the management of
personal business and affairs ,