Conservative.
Tire CONSERVATIVE
.TACK KAHHIT
TIVE remembers
CIIASKKS.
very distinctly a
splendidly formed thoroughbred grey-
honnd which was kept at a certain
ranch not far from Kearney on the
Platte in the year 1801. The owner of
that dog took a friend out one day to
prove his fleetuess.
They had not gone far before a big
jack rabbit started across the plain and
the hound after him ; on the course
another rabbit was scared up and the
dog chased him until still another was
jumped , and so on all day long he chased
each newly-appearing jack rabbit and at
night the symmetrical and swift dog
had caught not a single one !
There ore a good many young men
from universities and other institutions
of learning in the United States who
resemble that greyhound. They are
able and competent enough ; but they
are too easily beguiled into chasing first
one and then another way of making a
livelihood. And when their day of life
closes they will have accomplished
nothing and no trophies will crown their
endings.
Over-indulgent
A GOOD TIME.
parents are ever
lastingly talking about making efforts
to secure for their children "a good
time. " In their exuberance in this
direction they express the profound
opinion that it is important for children
to have "a good time" now , through
means of plans instituted by parental
affection. With exquisite sensitiveness
they eject the hope that their children
may never suffer as they suffered in
their childhood which was one of re
straint and discipline. These parental
philosophers fail to observe the fact ,
though it is a big one , that the restraint
and discipline of their childhood and
youth are the causes of their having ' 'a
good time" in middle life. As at a ban
quet the meats , the puddings , the
dessert of nuts and fruits are more im
portant than the soup , so in a lifetime
the lost years ore more to be looked
after and provided for as to pleasures
and satisfactions than the first. It is
better to wind up the game of living
with a good time than with a tragedy ,
and a pleasant afternoon with sunshine
and tranquillity is better than a beautiful
morning followed by a day full of clouds
and storms.
The circulation
CIRCULATION.
of lead currency in
Kentucky was at the ratio of precisely
sixteen bullets to one corpse in the re
cent interchanges of regard between
Colonels Colson , Scott , Golden , and a
few other titled officers of the Kentucky
militia , at Frankfort.
Kentucky colonels as a rule are very
economical in the use of solid cereals.
Very little corn in that chivalrous com
monwealth is over wasted in making
bread. On the other hand it is Paved
and stored away in pure , sweet whiskey
for the inspiration of those self-denying
and frugal patriots who , every now and
then , have a promiscuous shooting bee
to show the Filipinos and other savages
the beatitudes of self-government.
Kentucky is a splendid exemplar of in
telligent , uucorrupted and just govern
ment by the people who shoot , for the
people who shoot and of the people who
shoot. The shooters and the shootees ,
in the Frankfort fusillade , were all "fa
vorite sons , " distinguished and extin
guished citizens.
HE CONSERVATIVE -
THE CENTURY.
TIVE wishes to ven
ture another calm word in the discussion ,
which is becoming general and heated ,
as to whether we are now living in the
same century that we were living in last
mouth , or in another.
THE CONSERVATIVE has often ex
pressed its conviction that one hundred
cents are required to make a dollar , and
may therefore be thought to be estopped
from differing with those who stand on
the parallel platform , that it takes a
hundred years to make a century , and
who hold that the year 1900 must con
sequently be lumped in with 1899.
This does not seem necessarily to fol
low , however , if the parable of the
dollar is to be taken as a guide , for the
reason that dollars may be counted from
any point at which one chooses to begin ;
if you owe a bill of ten dollars , and have
paid , for instance , $5.G8 thereon , your
creditor will be quite willing to begin
reckoning at that point , and will freely
admit that you have paid him a full dollar
lar when your tale of pennies reaches
$6.03.
If therefore , we may be permitted to
disregard this argument without seem
ing to give encouragement to financial
fallacies , we would suggest that it would
bo indelicate for THE CONSERVATIVE to
question the justness of the decision
arrived at simultaneously on this point
by the Pope and the German Emperor ;
for the relations that have hitherto
existed between THE CONSERVATIVE
office , the Vatican and the court of
Berlin have been of the most harmonious
character. Now both these authorities
have pronounced for a now century
beginning on January 1st , 1900 , and
have in fact closed the question , so far
as themselves are concerned , by cele
brating that day with appropriate
ceremonies. And to ask them to hear
further argument in the case , with re
spect to dollars or otherwise , would be
to suggest that they should stultify
themselves , put themselves to permanent
intellectual confusion , which is a thing
manifestly unthinkable per se , and
therefore outrageous and not to be
thought of for a moment.
This reason has also another bearing ;
for every argument of the question , in
which the dUputauts are not swayed by
obstinacy or pride of intellect , must
come to this conclusion , that the Lord
only knows what century this is ; and
the Lord has made no sign whatever.
Now in this absence of any expression
from the Creator himself , whose voice
can we take as the nearest possible
approximation so properly as those of
Pope Leo and Allerhoechstderselbige
Bill ?
It was not these considerations , however -
over , that brought the question to a
focus with THE CONSERVATIVE , but a
somewhat unexpected consciousness ,
when suddenly the habit of a lifetime
had to be broken , and all letters and
memoranda ticketed with a 19 instead
of an 18 , that a change bad already
taken place , and that we were in a new
entourage of some sort. A moment'
reflection showed that , whether the so
enthusiastic mathematical demonstra
tors were right or wrong , we were
certainly in the 19's now , whereas yes
terday we were in the 18's. And do not
the hundred years which are to go under
the family name of the 19's make as
good a century as any other ?
It is , in fact , precisely the same situ
ation which is familiar to us in the
matter of decades. Of course , the ninth
decade of the 19th century did not ex
pire save with the year 1890 ; and yet
did not each of us , as he sat down to his
work on January 1st of that year and
faced the unfamiliar 9 , moralize some
what over the fact that the 80's were
closed and gone ? And do we not , in
familiar speech , allot particular occur
rences to the CO's , 80's , and so on ? And
would not nice discrimination as to the
initial and terminal year cause more
confusion and vexation than any good it
could accomplish ?
It seems probable that what may be
called the popular century will always
begin with the first year bearing the
new number ; and that our descendants (
will celebrate to a considerable extent '
the year 2000 , whereas the advent of
2001 will find them used to the sensa
tion , and therefore comparatively un
moved. There is for that matter no
reason why several centuries should not
exist simultaneously , just as do the
fiscal year of the government , beginning
July 1st , that of many corporations ,
which begins February 1st , and the
calendar year , which is counted from
January 1st.
There is a certain unfortunate weak
ness in the position of those who main
tain that 1900 must bo a part of the old
century , in that there is no definite
starting-point for the reckoning on
which they rely ; except that it ap
parently begins with some 1st of Janu
ary when Jesus Christ was three or four
years old. Ostensibly reckoning from
his birth , it does in fact no such thing.
No such manner of calculating was
