i * wry ; TW7 i' "
t > be Conservative * 5
Mont esqu i eu
HUMANGOVERNsays : "Chance ,
MENT. or fortune , does
not govern the
world. The truth of this position
might be referred to the Romans , who
enjoyed a continued course of prosper
ity while their government was con
ducted on a certain plan , and an un
interrupted series of reverses when
they adopted a different one.
There always exist certain general
causes , either moral or physical ,
which act upon the affairs , of every
government , , raise.itto grandeur , sup
port it in prosperity , or precipitate it
to its decadence or dissolution. ' ' Per
haps this is a good time for Ameri
cans , in view of the proposed policy
of expansion , to read history and par
ticularly to investigate the rise and
fall of all the republics which have
perished from the earth.
Before we undertake to adjust our
civilization and Christianity to the
barbarians ; and heathens of all or
even a part of the Philippine islands ,
perhaps we had better more perfectly
adapt , it to all the people of the
United States , including Indians , ne
groes and Chinamen. When wo shall
have more nearly approximated jus
tice at home we may be better pre
pared to secure it to those in foreign
countries.
In reading the
A QUEER great novelists of
SURVIVAL , the last .century ,
one is struck by
the vast distance . that separated the
classes of society ; the gentleman on
the one hand ; on the other the non-
gentleman , the roturier , the lout , the
' ' lowed man , ' ' as Chaucer called him ,
the plain homo vulgaris. The gentle
man would as a matter of course order
the lout about , beat him , chuck his
wife under the chin , or do as he
pleased with anything that was his ;
and the institution runs straight back
to the times of conquest , when he
might hang him at will into the bar
gain.
Now it has recently come to light
that the same two classes exist in the
s = HJ-relative position in this coun-
v try ; but a swift guesser could work
at it from sunrise till sunset , and
never guess who they are ; and we
fear most of our readers may think il
a joke ; when they learn that it is the
officers of our army who are the
gentlemen , and all the rest of us the
louts. Any of our soldier-boys cai
tell plenty of stories in point ; a very
apt one is of some privates , who ,
having to undergo a court martial , re
quested that two fellow-privates , who
were lawyers of particularly higl
standing at home , might act as theii
counsel. And this was refused , on
the/ground that the officers compos
ing the court martial , being gentle
men , could not meet those lawyer-pri
vates , who were not gentlemen , on
any such common footing.
We will evidently have to take this
into account in bringing up our sons
lencoforth. If we have a son whom
we wish to see a gentleman , wo will
have to got him , by hook or by crook ,
a pair of shoulder straps to wear ; his
[ ess fortunate brother , though he
should become a college-professor , a
railroad-president or a judge of the
supreme court , is not and can not be
a gentleman.
Just as the rising
WORDS IN tide of business in a
HARD LUCK , growing town drives
the residences be
fore it , so that the fashionable houses of
a few years ago are left forlorn amid
the noise of traffic ; while on the other
hand the open fields are taken posses
sion of and made to bear the homes of
the well-to-do ; so in the shifting of
men's ideas gradual changes are brought
about in the meaning of words. Once-
respectable terms fall into evil ways , BO
that they are no longer fit to appear in
polite society , and , conversely , words of
ill repute are brought up into the light
and air and formally adopted by the
wise and good. Sometimes there are
signs of method in this process , but
often it appears to be governed only by
the freakish spirit of language.
Who , for instance , can explain why
the good and bad words for boy and girl
have been reversed in position in the
last 500 years ? When Wycliffe trans
lated the Bible into English "knave"
and "wench" were the proper words.
He made St. Paul proclaim himself "the
knave of Jesus Christ , " and told the
story about the ruler of the synagogue
thus : "And he holding the bond of the
wenohe , seith to her , Wenche , to thee I
seie , rise thou. And anon the wenche
rees , and walkide. " Our word girl , on
the other hand , had a rather unsavory
flavor at that time ; and the old Teu
tonic word for a lad , or young man , has
been advanced to "knight" in English ,
while , oddly enough , it has been de
graded in German to mean a stable-boy.
It is remarkable how fate has perse
cuted nearly all words applying to the
plain people. A large proportion of our
most unpleasant terms were at one time
perfectly respectable words , and meant
no more than that the bearer was en
gaged in manual labor , or in agricul
ture. They were no doubt started on
the downward path by the idle upper
class , who were displeased with such
people because they wore old clothes
and smelled sweaty. "Vulgar" and
"lewd" are suoh words ; they come re
spectively from the Latin and German
words for the common people. "Vul
gar" brought its supercilious sneer into
English with it ; "lewd" has come down
i7 ! ? : . " p-.vt *
in comparatively recent times. In the
Cook's Tale we read :
'Thor was no lewede man that in the halle
stood ,
That wolde do Gamelyn eny thing but good. "
Here it signifies merely the menservants
vants , or farm-hands. In the King
James' translation of the Bible , the
apostle Paul is made to characterize a
mob that broke up one of his meetings
as "certain lewd fellows of the baser
sort " Here it is used in a directly dis
paraging way , but it is still far from its
present meaning.
"Common" itself , though it really
applies only to suoh thihgs as we share
with others , has come to be used in an
uncomplimentary way.
A "villain" is such a person as a
Roman gentleman came in contact with
when he visited his villa or country-
house , A "scamp" would seem also to
be one who has relations with the campier
or fields. A "blackguard" is one of the
company that appeared from a rich
man's kitchen when he mustered his
entire household.
It was in much this same spirit that
an Eastern agent , not long ago , being
disappointed as to something he had
hoped to obtain from the Nebraska City
council , sought to wound that respect
able body by calling its members ' 'a set
of fanners. " "What does the man
mean ? " asked one of the counoilmen.
He can't hurt my feelings a bit by say
ing that I own a farm in Otoe county.
I'd just as-soon own three or four. "
Sometimes the change in the force of
a word tells a story of development of
society. "Pecuniary" and "fee , " which
both have reference today to money ,
began , as everybody knovvs.as the Latin
and German words respectively for
cattle. This goes back a long way. It
was by reason of a mistranslation of
this Latin word , no doubt , and not be
cause cattle were still the chief form of
portable property , that an old English
Bible speaks of a "wommau which
hadde spendid al hir oatel in to lechis ; "
that is , for the doctors.
We speak with equanimity of our
children having the measles ; but that is
the old name for no less a disease than
leprosy. "Manye meselis weren in
Israel" says Wyoliffe , and again
"Crokide men gen , meselis ben maad
clone. " We have a savor of this in the
common phrase "measly pork , " for
meat infected with trichina.
T li e populists
THE BEST MEN. proclaim all capi
talists culprits.
All who have much money are bad
men. All who have only a little
money are better men and those who
have no money at all the best men.
And yofc nearly all populist leaders
who thus inveigh against accumul
ated capital desire to become capital
ists and be even called culprits rather
than to have a little money and be
classed as good men or no money and
be praised as the better or best men.
