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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 18, 1900)
THE C0UR3R. ' . X wholesome element of society arrayed against it, Tammany Hall flourishes. Croker's connection with the ice trust has embarrassed the party. North and south, east and west the people know thatCroker is an incubus and Tammany a reproach, but their black reputations do not seem to affect the machine. It nominates and elects and owns city officers from the mayor down, in spite of protest from men like Comptroller Coler and Mr. Hill. Usually exposure ends a thief's steal ings, but in the case of Tammany the voters do not seem to care. An Averted Fatality. The passengers on a car of one of the trolley lines were recently star tled by a sudden stop of the car, and the spectacle of a little girl lying in ert in the street with a blackened face. She was a little girl from the country, unfamiliar with street cars. She had rung the bell, after the car had passed the exact locality of her hostess' house, and in a rural panic of being carried beyond her reckoning, the little girl jumped'4rom the mov ing car and was dashed against the pavement. The child recovered from the accident and shock to the nerves, but it is only by a suspension of the inevitable that fatalities do not occur of tener on the street cars. The conductors are busy collecting fares and the motorman in obeying signals, regulating the energy and in manag ing the brake. Under these condi tions it is strange that the ignorant recklessness of childhood does not more often prove fatal. Only, children, fools and drunken men seem to be under a special protection. But one little, innocent life sacrificed to Igno rance is a warning we do not need. Thecbildrens' trolley parties which are of almost daily occurrence, are an example of the risks insouciant par ents take. The children stand on the step that extends alongside trite car. Occasionally a boy jumps to the ground and back again to the car while it is in motion. The conductor knows the danger and does what be can to insure his ju senile passengers' safety. But what is one conductor to forty undisciplined children? He should tiave strict orders to put any child off the car who persists iu trying danger ous experiments. I have seen the conductor of a chiidrens' trolley party beside himself, being without power to enforce precautions necessary to safety, and yet responsible, as the agent of the company, for the secure passage of his passengers. This re sponsibility without authority may be the cause of the prematurely aged ap pearance of the Lincoln Traction com pany's conductors. A Poor Reason. "Why do you allude to your cousin as Mies Trout when that isn't her name?" asked Hunker. "She is a freckled beauty," replied Spatta THE VISION OF THE JUDGE OF COLMAR. (Translated from the "Contes du Lundl," of Alphonse Daudet, by Katharine Mellck. I Before he took the oath of office to the Emperor William, there was not a happier man than the Petit Judge Dol linger, of the tribunal of Col mar, when he came to the hearing, with his toque over his ears, his portly figure, hie red Iip3, and his treble chin carefully dis posed upon his linen neck-band. "Ah! the snug little fee I shall make," he seemed to be saying to himself as be took his place, and it was a pleasure to see him stretch bis plump legs settling himself upoD his chair of state, upon that roll of leather, cool and smooth, to which it appertained to keep even tem per and clear brow after thirty years of magisterial assize. Unfortunate Dollinger! It ia that roll of leather which has lost him. He has found himself so very comfortable thereupon, his place was bo well made upon that mole-skin cushion that he preferred to become a Prussian, rather than to badge from thence. The Emperor William said to him, "Keep your seat, Monsieur Dollinger," and Monsieur kept his Heat; and today be hold him, counsel of the court of Col mar, steadily dispensing justice in the name of his Berlinese majesty. About him nothing is changed; always the same tribunal, faded, monotonous, the same audience chamber, with its reading desks, its bare walls, iti mur mur of advocates, the same half-light falling from high serge-curtained win dows, the same huge, dusty Christ, with bowed head, outstretched arms. In passing over to the Prussians, the court of Col mar has forfeited nothing: there is now a bust of the emperor at the end of the pretorium. But it is all oue. Dollinger finds himself disfranchised. In vain he lolls in his arm chair, settles anxiously there; he finds no more the snug little fee of old; and if by chance he falls asleep at the hearing, it is to terrifying dreams. Dollinger dreams that he is upon a high mountain, something like the HoDPck, or "balloon" of Alsace. What is he doing there, alone, in his judicial robe, seated in his great arm chair, on those immense heights where rfothing is to be seen but stunted trees and swarms of little gnats? Dollinger does not know. He wait all in a shiver of cold sweat and the anguish of night mare. A great red sun rises on the other side of the Rhine, behind the firs of the Black Forest, and as the sun rises, below, in the valleys of Thann, of Munster, from end to end of Alsace, there is a confused rumbling, a sound of feet marchingof carts moving; this in creases, it approaches, and Dollinger's heart sinks; then, along the length of the winding road that clutches the skirts of the mountain, the judge of Colmar sees approaching, a procession, mournful, interminable: all the people of Alsace, who have been appointed a rendezvous at that point of the'Voeges, for solemn emigration. In front move along cars drawn by four oxen; these long care at every vis ible opening all ovei flowing with harvest sheaves, and yet laden with furniture, clothes, implements of labor. There are great beds, high cupboards, Indian hangings, kneading troughs, spinning wheels, tiny chairs for children, arm chairs for the old, heaps of ancient rel ics, drawn from their corners, scattering to the wind of the road the holy ashes of hearth-stones. Whole households depart in those cars. None come save with groaning, and the oxen draw heav ily, aa if the soil clung to the wheels; as if those fragments of dried earth re maining on harrows, on ploughshares, on mattocks and rakes, rendered the load yet heavier, making the departing an uprooting. Behind presses a silent throng, of every rank, every age, from the grandsires with cocked hats, who totter over their canes, to the white, curly pates toppingsmali trouser straps; from the old paralytics borne on the shoulders of the youth, to infants whom mothers press to their bosoms; every one, the strong with the weak; those who will be the Boldiera-of the coming year, with those who have made the terrible campaign; crippled cuirassiers, dragging upon their crutches; pale, ema ciated artillerymen, carrying in the rags of their uniforms the mould of the case ments of Sandau; all this unrolls aw fully upon the road at the edge of which the judge of Colmar is sitting, and in passing before him, every face turns away with a terrible expression of anger and of loathing. Ah, the wretched Dollinger! He would hide himself, would flee; but it ia impoa Bible. His arm chair is encrusted in the mountain, bis roll of leather in his chair, and hinraelt in the leathern roll. Then he comprehends that he is there in a pillory, and that the pillory is so high in order that his disgrace may be further seen. And the pro cession winds on, village by 'village, those of the Swiss frontier driving im mense flocks, those of the Saar crowd ing their hard iron tools into ore-cars. Then the cities come, all the people of the spinning factories, the tanners, the weavers, the warpers, the shop men, the priests, rabbis, magistrates, black robes, red robes. See the tribunal of Colmar, the old president at the head. Dollinger, perishing of shame, tries to hide his face, but his hands are para lysed; to close'bis eyes, but the pupils remain fixed, immovable. He must see and be seen, must lose not one of those looks of scorn which his colleagues throw upon him in passing. The judge 'upon the pillory! It is something frightful. But what is more terrible still is that ail his own friends are in that company, and that not one recognizes him. His wife, his children, pass with bowed heads before him. One would say that they are ashamed, they, too. Even his little Michael, whom he loves so well, goes by without once looking at him. The old president alone pauses a moment to say in a low voict "Come with us, Dollinger. Do not stay there, my friend." But Bollinger can not rise. He struggles, he calls, and the procession tiles on for hours. When it has passed, at evening, all those beautiful valleys, filled with steeples and factories, ars silent. Only' the judge of Colmar re mains, nailed upon his pillory, immov able. r Suddenly tte Ecene changes. Willows, black crosses, tiers of tombs, a throng of mourners. It is the cemetery of Col mar on the day cf a great burial. All the bells of the city ring. The counselor, Dollinger, is dead. That which honor could not do, death has accomplished. Death has separated from his roll of leather the immovable magistrate, and stretched out at length the persistent sitter. To dream that one is dead, nd to lament oneself there is no sensation more horrible. Heart-broken, Dollinger assisted at his own obsequies, and that which anguished him yet more than his death waa that in tne dense throng pressed about him, he had not a friend, not a relative. No one of Colmar. No one but Prussians. They are Prussian soldiers that escort the bier, Prussian magistrates that conduct the mourners, the service they pronounce above the tomb is a Prussian service, and the earth they throw above him ia, alas! Prussian earth. All at once the throng opens, respect fully; a magnificent cuirassier in white approaches, holding under his mantle something which appears to be a great crown of the immortals. All around, they are saying: "Behold, Bismarck! Behold, Bis marck!" And the judge of Colmar thinks sadly: "It is too much honor you do me, Monsieur Count, but there is my little Michael. " A mighty roar of laughter prevents his ending mad laughter, scandalous, inextinguishable. "What are they doing?" demanded the judge, terrified. He rises. He looks around. It is his roll Jiis roll of leather, that Monsieur de Bismarck comes to place religiouslv upon his tomb, With this inscription enmargining the moleskin: O O TO TBS JUDGE DOLLINOER ORHAMENT OP THE MAGISTERIAL ASSIZE MEMORIAL AMD REGRET. o- -o From end to end of the cemetery, every one laughs, every one writhes with mirth, and that monstrous Prus sian derision resounds to the bottom of the vault where the dead one weeps of bame extinguished under an eternal scorn. SIGHTS IN TOTN. BY FLORA IIULLOCK. When Mr. Day came home and told his wife that Mr. Worth, the minister, had been talking to him, wanting them to go down to Lincoln to attend the Assembly, there was the usual list of hopeless objections from her. There would-be no one to look after the houe, no ono who would take care of the chick ens. Then she had nothing but ber best black dress, and you wouldn't catch ber wearing that to a camp-meeting. It waa too hot to go anyhow, and it would be sure to rain. She didn't like a crowd and those speakers talked longer than any mortal-man had a right to. You had to live on town victuals, fruit that hadn't seen a tree since it was a green baby, and she knew Pa could never keep away from the ice cream stands unless she kept right by him. iAnd so on. Martha Day was a master hand at finding excuses for staying at home. She hadn't been anywhere but to burials and marriages and sewing society meetings in her own home for ten year?, it waa said in town. She would have liked to go to church and prayer meeting, but she hated to dress 'up in ber best drees. it was tight and the sleeves drew and the neck was too high, and it was so much more comfortable to put on an old wrapper and stay at home. One of ths church members used to induce his wife to go to church just by saying, ''You're get ting to be as much of a stay-at-home as Mrs. Day." So Mr. Day had no hope of getting his wife to go to Lincoln, and at first had no notion of going alone. But the minister kept on ta king, and iovited him td go with bis family io the role of grandfather an idea which suited the children, as Mr Day was a storekeeper and had access to candy-jars and ani mal crackers. So Mr. Day, who was easily persuaded, though he never could persuade Martha, packed his small tele scope or Mrs. Day did it for him and joined the minister's party to the Assembly, leaving his wife to her usual tremendsus devices of housework, and charging the boys to look after the store. Ht would be gone only ten days, he said. He had never been in Lincoln on a sight-seeing trip before, so be made the most of everything, and before he went home he had satisfied bis curiosity re garding the capital of his state. Tbe first day he was in town he met an old war comrade and was taken possession of by the old war comrade's family. So he divided his time between the assem bly grounds and sights in town, making good use of Manager Humpe's carriages. After the assembly was over the min isters family went home, but Mr. Day's old comrade insisted on keeping him over for the reunion and after that the fair. Ha wrote a postal to Mrs. Day