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VOL. XV., NO. LI
ESTABLISHED IN 1880
PRICE F1VECBNTS
slslsisisiBw. V. V. MbbibibHPV 1K sV w r ,- -ss
LINCOLN, NBBR., SATURDAY, DEGBMBBR 23, 1800.
i
Entkbkdin thk posTomoa at Lincoln as
SECOND CLASS MATTM.
THE COURIER,
Official Organ of the Nebraska State
Federation of Women's Clubs.
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m courier prinIg Id publishing co
Office 1132 N street, Up Stairs.
Telephone 384.
SARAH B. HARRIS.
Editor
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X OBSERVATIONS. 8
The Woman Question.
It has been with no intention of
hurting anyone's feelings that I have
called attention to Mr. Bixby's con.
stant abuse of women. ' Although pro
testing that he is a friend Indeed to
woman he does not cease to remind
her that she Is the stupid part of cre
ation, born and bred to a valet's and
cook's part, that she is an unnatural
mother and an ungrateful wife to
take an afternoon out once a fort
night, and that unless she confronts a
cookstove when she leaves a washtub
or lays down the mop, or her freshly
disciplined son she is all out of draw
ing. Out of her natural environment of
four kitchen walls decorated with pans,
mops, brooms, a handsome upright
range baby grand and kitchen table
and sink with the tubs in the centre
back-ground Mr. Bixby calls woman
"unnatural," "mannish," "bawling".
If she venture to a club he reminds
ber she is neglecting her sacred duties,
that her husband might come home
and want a "soslge' and because his
wife lias unsexed herself by going to a
dub there is no "soslge" sizzling for
hi in. He calls the clubwoman's at
tention to the claims of man to her
whole time and all her reverence. If
we arc, as denominated, a little sillier
th m the fools the safety of society de
mands that we each of us should have
a Jailor, but if wo are capable of reason-
-rsiK the sort of servitude that hypo
crites preach Is now and ever will be
impossible. The Courier can becrltl-
Only the truth hurts, but this jester
was something too insistent and recurrent.
cised for taking a jester too seriously, bravery Is as unquestioned as over but.
their hereditary lack of foresight is
beginning to bo recognized by the
world militant. It Is not so certain
they will win in the Transvaal. The
Boer generals aro sly with the slyness
of the Imperturbablo Dutch. They
know their veldt and have been
trained to an out door life. Tho Boer
regimental officers know nothing
about sliver table service, and rich
hangings in their quarters. They arc
cowboys whose luxuries are tho hard
ships of the British officer. With tho
newest thing in guns and powder
handled by steel muscles and directed
by the subtlety which is Dutch, it is
notabsolutely safe to predict that Oom
Paul will bo expatriated by England
very soon.
British Soldiers.
In a series of articles on the privates
and officers of tho Queen's army a
writer, who is himself an officer In
that army, described In Harper's
Monthly of this year the life of tho
officers. Neither in England nor in
India was there any account of real
soldierly training. Good fighters are
not made by uninterrupted cards,
whiskey, and soda, and all night
feasting and dancing. Most of the
officers are letter perfect in drill and
know the regulations, but a command
ing general is surely in need of inspira
tion and quite another sort oftralnlng
when actually in the field. British
officers, since the days of Lord Corn
wallls and Lord Howe have not been
masters or even students of strategi
cal warfare. If it be necessary to
take a city or a fort the British officer
charges like a bull and like a bull is
slaughtered. The military greatness
of England is In spite of military stu
pidity and because of wealth, over
powering numerical strength, and the
quality of unfaltering loyalty, stub
borness and bravery In the soldiery.
At the battle of Bunker Hill the
British took the American redoubt or
Co-Education.
The recent ruffianly conduct of a
few undergraduates of Wisconsin unl-
scrit 1, classical philology 4, Germanic
philology 0, history 3, economics 1, ed-r
ucation and teaching 17, mathematics
0, tine arts 1, music 1, geology 1. All
these are graduato courses in Harvard
and that there is not a "snap" among
them 1b evident. Yet Professor Bar
rett Wendell recently announced that
"Iladcliffe college was contributing to
the slowly enfeebling infatuation of
Harvard's professors'' with tho system
of co-education. Professor Byerly
says quite the contrary that Iladcliffe
Is standing between Harvard college
and tho completo co-education that
Professor Wendell fears. So long as
the authorities can answer all pleas
for co-cducatlon by pointing with coni
victlon to Radcllffo it is surmised
that the army of women will be turn
ed back from the doors.
Mrs. Bertha Hebard Pettis.
vvitu duo exception or ttie veara
versity who broke Into tho young spent in Welles'oy and in Europe Mrs,
ladies' rooms has been Used by a num
ber of editors who do not believe in
co-education as a horrible example of
the manners and morals that system
produces. Ruffianly conduct among
male undergraduates of institutions
coeducational and otherwise Is, un
happily, frequent enough, but this ex
ploit is unique. Students of Wiscon
sin university are peculiarly savage
and barbarous more so than the or-
JPettls has lived in Lincoln all her
life. It was my good fortune to know
her Intimately in her school days. As
a girl she was quiet, a very able schol
ar and an aimiablo friend. Ah tho
mother of four littlochlldren hor time
was absorbed by them. It Is fortu
nato that they are too young to esti
mate what the loss of such a loving,
wise, devoted mother means to them,
It Is difficult to speak temperately of
position but with a loss of 1,054 men. dlnary college student who considers Mrs. Pettis.. Her life was so fragrant
all mankind his prey and all its prop
erty his to burn or carry oft when he
is out on a lark. Yet, in all the fatu
ous annals which record the deaths of
fraternity initiates, the redpainting
of John Harvard's statue, and the do-
feat them. From the retreat of Lex- facement of public buildings, there is gentleness, culture, and magnanimous
ington 1775, April 10, to the surrender nothing like this Wisconsin barbarity, devotion of this gentlewoman. The
of.Yorktown 1781, October 10, in As it Is a single Instance it is there- fragrance of tho'vlolet can notbede-
lore nob uu urguumnb agaiDNd tne sys
And then as now there was wailing in
England and nobody understood why
with an army willing to stand up and
be shot at and shoot, to charge with a
cheer and to obey orders, a few undis
ciplined militiamen were able to de-
she herself, was so unconscious of tho
beauty and strength of her own char
acter that only a poet can adequately,
express her Ineffable womanliness.'
And even a poet could only recall to
thoso who knew her the exaulslta
m -f
twenty-four engagements, Including
the surrender of two armies, the Brit
ish losses in the field were not less
than 25,000 men, while those of tho
Americans were about 8,000. Now,
tho English are as patriotic as we are,
and perhaps more so. They are con
ceited with an old, seasoned conceit
that we are not old enough to have
developed. In five hundred years of
fox hunting they have not learned the
uses of strategy. They can fight
straight out with their fists. They
can shoot pretty straight with a gun,
but the subtler Boer leads them into
ambushes that the Yankee soldier
would smell or detect by the use of a
sense which the English despise and
scribed. If one does not know what
it Is, so much the worse. It can nob
be described or memorialized after it
is crushed and faded. But those who
knew It, and the faint sweet odor it
breathed in the intimate, hidden
place where it grew will forever re
member the violet.
The Personal Tax
The personal tax is the smallest tat
levied, yet, although the law Is ex
plicit In regard to the duty of the
city treasurer to collect the tax,'
neither Mr. Aitkin, Mr. Elmer 8tevn.
a well bred girl. The effect upon the son nor Mr. Jones resorted to distress'
young men or association with the warrants the last and authorized re-
tern, in can oniy do regarded as an
outbreak of savagery, impossible to ac
count for.
In the older institutions of tho cast
co-education is still regarded with
horror and from tho girl's point of
view I am not sure that dally associa
tion with the men who fill the gallery
of the opera houso with a hoarsely
shouting, shrilly whistling, loudly
stamping and occasionally hissing
crew, is refining or at all desirable.
They may make fine men but at this
period of development and unrestraint
they aro not desirable companions for
haire never cultivated. In 1775 Lord young ladies in Nebraska university sort for collecting the taxes except
is noii noticeauiy renniug. iietrospec- in cases wnere ino debtor was leaving
tively some of the Alumni admit that the city. The city treasurer has gen
respect for the young ladles occasion- orally felt perfectly satisfied with the
ally restrained, but In the mass and performance of the occasionally un
to an outsider the sight and sound of pleasant duties for which the people'
Howe depended on British prestige.
It was enough to occupy Boston and
New York with real soldiers, he
thought, to frighten a few boorish pro
vincials into obedience. In the early
winter of 1890 Commander Buller has several hundred university students is pay his salary, by the annual issuance
occupied the Transvaal in exactly the
same way. At Bunker Hill, Balaklava,
Tugela, English soldiers were ordered
to charge a hidden foe whose strength
had not been ascertained. Officers
and men were mowed down like grass
not encouraging. Individually they of notices to tax-payers and by follow-
are very likely aimiable and well bred.
Iladcliffe college is a sort of expur
gated and diluted Harvard. It Is a
graduate school and not especially
popular. It contains about forty-five
ingtbem, when not paid, by notices
threatening forcible collection after
a certain, specified date. These no-'
tlces aro entirely perfunctory. For
tunately most of the citizens believe
and they fell in swathes. Their young women who are studying: San-f that their taxes must be paid and pay
t