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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (April 27, 1901)
THE COURIER. rf X spirit droops. I can sec only the in termediate sorrow, the shame, the suffering, the concealment, the rejec tion, the passionate torment of men and women, born to neither one race nor the other, scorned by both; inno cent exiles; broken, for the sins of nesus camped down around Troy for the long siege. Egyptian history is said to begin about 5000 years ago. The savants are not agreed and we might as well leave them discussing whether the authentic remains bc long to the Deriod 2000 nr :mon n n others, upon the wheels of the world I The age of the oldest Sequoia trees is I feel like battling against that which certificated in the tree and connects threatens to undermine the integrity us indubitably with the early morn of my own race. ing of history. Yet we would cut But ray friend says the shame is them down for the profit of a furni here and that it can not be ignored, ture company. Before the hemic-, -.urn She says that facts must be accepted of Greeece began these majestic trees tlle IItt,e legendary Christ-kind as they are found. I am sure the lield the nests of extinct birds, Prl- uscd to do ,n tue 0,d German stories, clubs must face the situation. And I meval men gazed at the straight Miss father's love of children and wonder if they dare say: "It is the strong boles in awe. To the aborigines t,,e Iuemory of her own childhood men among you who have sinned; it, the trees were mysterious ancestors. comoined with a remarkable knowl- is you, the women, who must pay the To the American nhilistinc the hlirl eo"se of words and their articulation penalty!" gest tree was only 500.000 cubic feet, of enables her to write exceedingly well, dizzy. It has made him a law unto himself, and whatever wickedness ho is responsible for, with the true fan atic spirit, he sincerely believes that he has done right. Ji J "Jacka Boy." MissWilla Cather's story Jack-a-boy, published in a recent number of the Saturday Evening Post, is a charming story of a little boy, who fulfilled his mission to his neighbors, I could not say it; but there may be those who can. It is certain that the clubs must face the question at the next biennial. lumber and be cut it down. OBSERVATIONS. Arbor Day. 'The groves were God's first tem ples," and in ancient times they were often considered sacred. During the progress of -the centuries, and espec ially in these later years, this spirit of simplicity and veneration of nat ural objects has rapidly been elimi nated. The next step in this process of demolition is the appropriation of once-revered objects to personal use. In the case of forest-destruction this tendency is especially deplorable. The consumption of timber in the of children. Jack-a-Boy is one who might have become a composer, a J poet, an artist or a writer. He had A Poseur. tlie wide, gray eyes that hold the The Congregational church will llght and re,,ect !t back augmented, not try Mr. Herron for heresy, but for the cyes r a Stevenson, a Keats, or a conduct, n nJww.m in n fin n.,1 Chatterton. lie takes an interest in a Christian. The Congregational church is singularly vague about heresy. Each church is a law unto itself. Occasionally but not frequent ly a Congregational church asks for the advice of other ministers of the same denomination, but there is no synod or convocation of bishops that emotions, Is neglected and frowned upon by the very people who are de voted to the saving of souls. The best ministerial orator who can move his people to tears or smiles is seldom able to keep the absorbed attention of an audience from the beginning to the end of his sermon. The theatre might be converted into the most effective means of teaching truth, chastity, honesty etc, because people are but children and the drama is a picture, a concrete example of the good and evil of a whole life com pressed into a short story or a play and enacted in an evening before absorbed eyes. Ji ji Pigeon-Shooting. Harper's Weekly last week printed a cartoon of a pigeon as large as a bull being shot from a trap and catching the trap-shooter by the throat. Bull-baiting is really a less cruel sport than shooting at pigeons thrown from a tran. though wn mn tu iieiguuoriioou ue moves luiuana sidcr It so because the pigeon Is too by his lovely and loving sympathy small to hurt the man with the gun with all his neighbors he destroys $f his aim Is poor. Columns have been malice and uncharitable gossip. But written by the superior Anglo-Saxon like Mrs. Burnett's parodied little about the brutality of the Latin bull Lord Fauntleroy, and all the Sunday- baItIng amusement. Of the two the school-book boys little Jack-a-Boy bull-fighter is more civilized. The dies. When all the good little boys hull i nnf. foftopi i, i. i.. .i Js ....". ..,.1. '""'" ""w""'" ., u.u3,aUU has any power either mandatory or of Iiterdture die voun it is discour- noofSj nc Is swlft he i9 cunnjn,, and .,a..i. .. . auenienfc to th "woiild-hp.-L'nod' i. .. . t.m. ,.. , advisory over any Congregational church. Mr. Herron has been expect ing a summons to a heresy trial for years. But not one minister of the Congregational church was willing to assist Mr. Herron in his search for agement to the "would-be-good1 little boys who read about them. If all the good little boys die, a conver sion must take place somewhere in the lives of a large number of bad boys. For although the extraordina- he sometimes kills the toreador. The doves are defenseless. Shut into a dark box, they are suddenly thrown, by a strong spring, into the air. Blinded they are as apt to tly in one direction as another. The man who United States is estimated at no less notoriety and his desire for a martyr's riIy good men are not frequent enough shoots them has the sporting instincts than 25,000 acres of groves every twen ty-four hours. To the credit of Ne braska must be placed the first defin ite effort to counteract this wholesale destruction of forests. At the annual meeting of the State Board of Agri culture on January 4, 1872, an Arbor Day resolution was adopted, and at the first celebration over a million trees were planted in Nebraska. Hon. J. Sterling Morton, Secretary of Agri culture in the Cleveland cabinet, in stituted the first American Arbor day, which is now recognized as one of the most helpful and patriotic events of the year. The popularity of this cele bration is due largely to the fact that it was welcomed by the teachers and made part of the education of pupils in the common schools of the United States. About a hundred trees have been planted on the Lincoln school grounds during the present month, and Arbor Day programs were given in most of the school buildings. An appropriation has recently been made by the California legislature for the protection of the sequoia trees of Calaveras. The diameter of twen ty of these trees exceeds 25 feet and are therefore about 75 feet in circum ference. One tree which has been cut down by the American lumber man was 302 feet in height and 96 feet in circumference. It was sound to the core and had been growing for three thousand years. The Indians spared these trees, they reverenced them, but the people who have super ceded the natives cut down the trees to make sideboards, bedsteads, and tables. The Egyptians would com mit a lesser crime if they pulled down the pyramids to get building stones. Think of it! here in the new world are trees which have been growing organisms for 3000 years. pose. Lately Dr.,Hillis, one of the manliestof ministers, refused to speak on the same occasion with Mr. Her ron, not because of Herron's views, not because of any heresy but "be cause," Dr. Hillis said, '! am a plain common man." Mr. Herron is to be tried for charges of immorality and if it be found that his conduct meas ures up to the standard of the com mon layman, who but promises at the altar to forsake all others and cleave only unto one, he will be acquitted of the charges. There are deep pitfalls dug for the feet of reformers. From Wolfenbarger to Herron the constant temptation to strike a highly moral, haloed attitude in public, and yield to temptation while people are looking the other way, has gained many victims. Unless a man has extra human strength, it is not given to him to stand in a bright light and on high places as an example to humanity. The effect of worship upon a man is to make him think himself superior to the moral law his worshipers ob serve. Man can not be elevated above his fellowmen without getting dizzy then the devil tips him over with a touch. He was made to walk on the earth. His head is not strong, in spite of the declamation of the man's rights man. His flesh is weak and when he elevates himself he misses the supporting shoulders of the crowd. The list of reformers is a long one and some of them, by the grace of God, have not fallen below the standard set and conformed to by the plain men. A reformer makes up his mind that the plain men and women of his day and church or state are wrong, and that he knows better than all the rest of his contemporaries. He must be somewhat of a fanatic to get in "I'd like to be a printer, And with the crinters stand ; Green ink upon my forehead, And benzine on my hand ; And if a mad subscriber Came in to kick and roar, Fd stab him with the towel That leans against the door." J. F. HARRIS, No. I, Board of Trade, CHICAGO. STOGKS AND- BONDS w WVU.W,.UHH v .W..WWSV ww p.WW .M- w , " They are older than the beginning of spiration enough to overcome the in- stop at the best hotels. But never Persian history. Grecian history is ertia or current of custom and habit theless the faces that watch good Grain, Provisions, Cotton. to be tiresome, there are enough men who go about dispelling the darkness, comforting tiie broken-hearted, feed ing the poor and shedding sweetness and light, to make us believe they must have been pretty good when they were lads and to make us thank, ful that they escaped the story-tellers who are more fatal to good children than the scarlet fever microbe. Except for this yielding to the nat ural impulse of the short story writer to make his story complete by a pathetic death, this story of Miss Catber's is admirable. Letting the boy die is not a fault. I protest against it only because I know that many of the good and interesting boys live to be tolerably, humanly good and fascinating men and this tendency of story-writers is discour. aging to imaginative boys who wish to be good and still wish to live. The Influence of the Stage. Americana are an imaginative peo ple. The faces of an audience watch ing clever actors work out the roles of an interesting play rellect the emo tions in the order they are produced on the stage. Entirely forgetting place and occasion by far the larger part of the audience gasp, or weep or laugh as the situation is thrilling, pathetic or droll. Everybody knows that the play is but a four de force and that the actors are not really in love or in pain or dying or dead, that nobody's heart is really broken, that nobody's daughter is shamefully wan dering at night with a bit of an old shawl instead of a hat on her head. Everybody knows the actors of the drama are a company of well-dressed well-drilled, well set-up men and wo men, who travel in Pullman cars and or the gunner who tires at birds be fore they are Hushed. The wounded birds that get away die after days of fevered suffering. Birds of the Held, that legitimate hunters shoot, occa sionally get away, hut hidden in the woods or fields they have a chance for their lives, and the birds that are killed are cooked and eaten. A Horseless Age. Judge What's your occupation? Prisoner I'm a horse-thief oat of a job, your honor. Judge How's that? Prisoner The automobile has ruined my business. See? mere guess work till the Olympiads and to get even a small part of the in 776 B. O. and the Sequoias had world to follow him. Convinced that then been growing 724 years, The he is right and all the world is wrong little green stalk had pushed its head it is not difficult for him to convince out of the ground and was a slender himself that whatever he likes is young tree four hundred years old right for him. Mr. Herron has a when the warriors from the Pelopo- small following and it has made him actors are wet with tears or convulsed with laughter, or righteously set in confirmatory approval of the hero's virtuous declamation. Some people are even profoundly moved by theat rical performances. Yet the theatre which is so powerful an agent of the aod sfc Private Wk to New York City many uucs cast ana West. MEMBER New York Stock Bxehmg. Chicago Stock Kxcbanfe. Chicago Board of Trade 49 .31 4 n:.i i; ti ! 13f I I 'i m 5, ! ' l Is-M Jug :l 11 i f r 1 i 41 i i 1