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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (April 25, 1896)
gf? ,v jv --r ..Vr- ".Tf? --V?"- f;8-:-? . & - " WV - .' W - 'f- ' ' ZSS.r? :? 9 i?- THE COURIER. IK- u I fe lj r l K Ift WE AND OUR NEIGHBORS Postmaster Hoeing of Chicago has adopted Postmaster Harley'e plan of stamping tbe weather reports on the letter. Tbe papers of the country re fer to Postmaster Heeing as the origi nator of a very clever idea such is jus tice. Mr. Harley can sympathise with Shakspere, bullied out of his' owu place by Bacon. The former has the ad van tage ot Shakspere in being alive, also in possessing strategical powers of unusual adaptability to the situation. If the people who read the newspapers throw them aside with the idea that Mr. Hes iag of Chicago first applied weather re port to the outside of envelopes it will be because. Mr. Harley cares not for fame. Tbe idea that is slowly spread ing all over the United States is Mr. Harley's own, and altho' the affection of the few is better than the gaping ad miration of the many, this m a case where "The Postmaster of Lincoln" can confer honor upon almost his native place by intercepting Postmaster flee iag'a undeserved reputation for origi nality. Senator Cullom advocates stirring aome flavoring extract into the gum on the stamp that, like humanity, must-be licked before it is of any service. The stamp as it is today k smoothed over en the envelope aide by a sickly, eggy paste that cannot be as bad as it tastes or we would all have the plague. It the fla vored stamp motion or bill is approved aBd stamps taste of checkerberry, lemon, orange, or pineapple the type writer will no longer need to chew tutti frutti all the time to get rid of the taste of her employer's correspondence. The association of ideaB caused by flavors and odors is subtle and elusive. In the good time a coming when the lover seals ' his letter and lays the stamp on his lips he will nee himself and his sweetheart wandering in orange groves or lime ave nues aBd he will conclude that he has a tropical, poetic imagination. When "he gets down to the store" he- will measure eft calico aa though it were feet in the ode- to the eyes, lips and hair of hie mistress that he k composing, Nobody knows what flights tbe most sodden imagination k capable of when influ need by the mysterious f orce of asso ciation of ideas. A dry goods clerk, whose only aspiration k to be a mer chant prince can do a sonnet without bait trying under certain conditions. The merits of the man who makes two blades ot grass grow where one grew be fore have perhaps been too exclusively celebrated. That man who attaches a syphon to the unused poetry around us so that it k absorbed into the systems Ot everyday people deserves the grati tude of the whole people. Bread and frequently butter are within everybody's reach. Poetry must have assistance to yet over the walk that money love has tatreached us in. Of coiiree the system mast be in tbe right condition to receive the suggestion. Typhoid fever germs are iaocuous when the ststem k active. Senator Cullom ought to have a reward bestowed on literary merit. Is there aayihiag except a col'ege degree or a wreath ot bay for him? Neither are quite satisfying rewards The one sug gests political pull, the other, soup. The enthusiasm, unrestrained, that the English are showing to Stephen CraaeV l&ed Badge of Courage k ex plained by General A. C. McClurg in the current issue of 'The Dial. He calk it -The Red Badge ot Hysteria. The Cockibb's opinion ot the book has Wen reiterated. It kgratifying, at last to Had a gallant soldier taking the name ground, albeit with more strength and aBtlasaTBrniBTaaTsnli trwjk amno Editor ot the Dial: Must we come to judge ot books only by what the news' papers have said of them, and must we abandon all the old standards of criti cism? Can a book and an author, utterly without merit, be puffed into Buccess by entirely undeservedpraise, even if that praise come from English periodicals? One must ask these questions after he has been seduced into reading a book recently reprinted in this country en titled "Tbe Bed Badge ot Courage, an Episode ot the American Civil War." The chorus ot piaise in the English pa pers has been very extravagant, but it k noticeable that so far, at least, the American papers have said very little about the merits or demerits of the book itself. Ihey simply allude to the noise made over it abroad, and therefore treat its author as a coming factor in our literature. Even the Dial's very acute and usually very discerning critic of con. temporary fiction (Mr. Payne) treats the book and the author (in your issue of Feb. 1) in very m uch this way that is, as a book and an author to be reckoned with, not because of any good which he himself finds in them, but because they have been so much talked about. The book has been very recently re printed in America, and would seem to be an American book, on an American theme, and by an American author, yet originally -Ksued in England. If it is really an American production one must suppose it to have been promptly and properly rejected by any American pub lishers to whom it may have been sub mitted, and afterward more naturally taken up by an Englkh publisher. It k only too well known that English writers have had a very low opinion of American soldiers and have always, as a rule, assumed .to ridicule them. We all know with what bitterness and spitef ulnees the Saturday Review always treats Americans; and with what special Yindictiveness it reviews any book upon our late struggle written from the northern standpoint. And bo it is with all British periodicals and all British writers. They are so puffed up with vain glory over their own soldiers who seldom meet men of their own strength, but are used in every part of the world for attacking and butchering defenseless savages, who happen to possess some property that Englishmen covet, that they cannot believe that there can be among any people well-disciplined soldiers as gallant and courteous as their own. ' Under such circumstances we cannot doubt that "The Red Badge of Courage' would be just such a book as the English would grow enthusiastic over, and we cannot wonder that the redoubtable Saturday Revkw greeted it with the highest encomiums, and declared it the actual experiences of a veteran of our war, when it was really the vain imagin ings of a young man born long since that war, a piece of intended realism based entirely on unreality. The book is a vicious satire upon American soldiers and American armies. The hero of the book (if such he can be called "the youth" the auther styles him) is an ig norant and stupid country lad, who, without a spark of patriotic feeling or even ot soldierly ambition, has enlkted in the army from no definite motive that the reader can discover, unless it be be cause other boys are doing so; and the whole book, in which there is absolutely no story, k occupied with giving what are supposed to be his emotions and his actions in the first two days of battle. Hk poor weak intellect, if indeed he has any, seems to be at 'once and entirely overthrown by the din and movemeat of the field, and he acts throughout like a madman. Under the inflaence'of mere excitement, for he does not-appear to comes to stay There is more than one food which will cause the body to increase in weight A free supply of sugar will do thii ; so will the starchy foods ; cream, and some other fats. But to become fleshy, and yet remain in poor health, is not what you want Cod-liver oil increases the weight because it is a fat-producing food. But it does far more than this. It alters, or changes, the processes of nutrition, restoring the normal functions of the various organs and tissues. Scotia dmufstcru of Cod-liver Oil with hypophosphites, is pure cod liver in a. digested condition. So that when a person gains in weight from taking Scott's Emulsion, it is because of two things : First, the oil has acted as a fat-producing food ; and, second, it has restored to the body a healthy condition. Such an improvement is permanent; it comes to stay. joctf. and ft atom. SCOTT BOWNB, ChemUta, Krw Yerk. 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