THE COURIER
s.
the end me may have enough
credit to let him through, but his
preparation for life is not to be com
pared with that of the youngster's
whose parents 'could not afford to send
him to college and who has worked
with might and main at some business,
trade or profession.
In business life there is.no one to
urge a young man forward. There are
many competitors and the boy knows
his place is sought by others. If he
does not compass a certain standard of
usefulness to his employer,' the latter
summarily dismlses him. There are no
tears, no adjurations to do better,
nothing that the boy is accustomed to
at home and at school, and the at
mosphere and discipline makes fibre.
Notwithstanding all this, the future
man of large affairs Is likely to be an
educated man, and unless the fresh
man has definitively demonstrated his
inability to resist the manifold tempta
tions to immorality so freely extended
to him by this city, it Is much better
that he go to work, and most parents
recognize this fact.
With the Aid of the Mules
Boer statesmen and letter writers to
the newspapers have been complaining
because this country furnished Eng
land with mules for the African cam
paign. But 'the disaster which has
overtaken General Methuen was pre
cipitated by the mules and his own
failure to learn how " to fight boer
guerillas. The men were marching In
a long loose line and at the first sound
of the firing the mules stampeded for
the xear and the soldiers after them.
'If it had not been for the assistance
of the mules the British defeat would
not have been so overwhelming. In
consequence the Dutch forces are elated
and the British army correspondingly
depressed. The buoyant feeling which
had begun to prevail In England Is
clouded. It is intimated that more
troops must be forwarded to South
Africa and this does not mean that
peace and surrender are In sight of
either army. The war is now entering
upon the last half of the third year.
Its cost up to the present time nearly
equals the-amount paid on the British
public debt during the long reign of
Queen Victoria, and every week it
adds millions more.
&
The Man Who Would Be King
There is no road to royalty that the
man who is not a prince can take.
. Napoleon, Aaron Burr and Cecil
Rhodes had dreams of empire. Napo
leon was not even a citizen of the
country of which he crowned himself
king. He was not an usurper In tl.e
accepted sense. He came to the throne
not with soldiers of another country
to enforce his claims, but as the head
of the French army. He made him
self emperor, taking the crown from
the hands of the pope and placing It
on his own head. He reigned for a
few years with oriental absoluteness.
He placed his brothers on the thrones
of Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.
General Bernadotte was made king of
Sweden. The tradition of the divine
right of kings and of being born to
the purple was threatened with an
everlasting denial. All the monartfhs
who were still on their thrones made
an alliance and the trust conquered
Napoleon at Waterloo. If Napoleon,
with his magnificent ability to Inspire
the faith and affection of thousands
of soldiers, finally failed to conquer a
kingdom, it is not likely that any man
of less supreme military intelligence
and inspiration will ever succeed in
founding a . dynasty. However en
feebled by generations of inter-marriage
the sons of the monarchs of
Europe become, there is no son of a
peasant can take a prince's place. The
old Greeks believed their rulers were
descended from the gods. There are
only a few families; the Bourbons, the
Hohenzollerns, the Hanovers, and a
few others from whom rulers are re
cruited. If' the scion of an unknown
and unanointed family undertakes to
crown himself, his tradition-bound sub
jects will dethrone his son, no matter
how wise his rule.
Cecil Rhodes dreamed of empire In
South Africa. He incited the Jnmieson
raid. He said that his dream meant
greater empire for England and glory
for himself as the founder of it. Cecil
Rhodes is dead, and we are not likely
to know whether he loved himself or
England supremely. The day of es
tablishing a new dynasty Is passed.
When the Kings' sons and all the
kings' nephews and nieces, when their
brothers, uncles and remote cognates
are dead and the last representative
of the fading, ailing dynasties now
ruling the old world are gone, a mifcht
ier than Napoleon or Charlemagne
must arise to lay the claimant democ
racy. We are not anarchists to over
turn an old order by which our fathers
have lived and prospered, but the Eng
lish language Is growing and the ideas
it names are being Ineradlcably learned
by the peoples of the earth. There are
trees more than a thousand years old.
but time will conquer them and the
moment will come when a breeze will
crack the bole of the oldest and
strongest redwood yet living. If Is
still the age of the king, but his ex
tinction Is historically foreshadowed.
The mad kings of Bavaria, the puny
king of Spain, the dying energy of the
scrofulous Hohenzollerns magnificently
revived In the Emperor William, the
English Hanoverians who already have
no vital connection with the govern
ment, the Sultan of Turkey, even the
discredited empress of China, are cur
rent indications of the eventual ex
tinction of the monarch 'from execu
tive power in the affairs of men of all
nations.
Cecil Rhodes was born In times
marked modern. In the days of
Charlemagne or as late as Charles the
Bold, when kings were still a'maklng,
his dream might have come true. But
1902 is long past the time.
-V. Ji
f Ttr c
House-Cleaning
The carpet bombardment has begun,
and Its dust conceals the r-n behind
the three feet of rubber hose. Early In
the morning the dreamers, half-way
between slumber and full conscious
ness, hear the dull booming that stimu
lates the dormant memory of Independ
ence days or the first guns of battles.
The sound puts persistent sluggards
sounder to sleep. Their subconscious
ness realizes that unless the explosions
are Ignored duty will force them ou
of bed at an unusually early hour.
The mind of man Is Incapable of
comprehending the pleasure and satis
faction a woman experiences In know
ing that her home and everything in
it Is clean; that there Is not a corner,
or a moulding, or a trunk, or a chest
that has not been Inspected, overhauled"
and cleaned. The satisfaction of
knowing that the whole house is clean
is not balanced by any other pleas
ures of the year. At other periods
of the year the several rooms of the
houses that good house-keepers pre
side over are cleaned and put in order,
but only twice a year are their dwell
ings clean all over simultaneously.
After the last bureau drawer has been
rearranged for the summer, the last
book shaken, dusted and returned to
its place on the shelves and the last
picture hung again on the shining,
clean wall, there is ineffable and per
fect satisfaction for woman. If men
get reasonably palatable food three
times a day or twice, and if the house
appears to be clean they are satisfied.
On the days when the women reckon
with the accumulations of six months,
there is a distinct lowering of the so
cial temperature. Never mind; the
fragrance of cleanliness will penetrate
the less sublimated masculine Intelli
gence finally. Order Is Heaven's first
law, and when human beings have es
tablished it there is a momentary feel
in gof satisfaction that dissipates the
memory of meals eaten in corners for
a fortnight.
The man of the house holds that
three meals a day eaten with the
proper ceremonies and observances
should not be disturbed because the
housekeeper is endeavoring to bring
her house into relation with the time
of the year. The spring Impulse ex
presses itself in the young man by
turning his thoughts towards a home
of his own; In the married man By the
purchase of a spring suit. The normal
woman must nee to It that her house is
cleaned, painted, papered, resurrected
from decay. Herein is the difference.
General Miles
If General allies had been in .he
Fillplnes, If he had done a soldier's
and a general's work, the people of the
United States would sympathize with
him in his troubles. But since his ele
vation to the rank of lieutenant general
of the army he has spent most of the
time in Washington criticising the
president and the secretary of war, his
two superior officers. He objects to
taking orders or even appearing to re
ceive advice from anyone. The person
ality of the secretary of war and of
the president has nothing to do with
his troubles. Secretary Alger was as
obnoxious to him as Secretary Root,
and President -McKlnley and he were
not In harmony. Lieutenant General
Miles says .he should be the final au
thority In the war department. He re
sents the fact that the office he holds
is subordinate to two others.
The general's record is distinguished.
He has been a brave and effective In
dian fighter and his services in the
civil war were of great value to the
country.
In his old age he Is irascible and he
intimates that his sei vices are not suf
ficiently appreciated by the government
at Washington. He fancies the people
of this country know all about it and
would vote for him if he allowed the
democratic party to nominate him for
president. But a greater soldier than
he, a naval commander of the first
rank among the few great admirals
of the world, soon discovered that the
people demand something more from a
president than fighting qualities. Since
General Miles has been at the military
head of the army he has repeatedly
shown a lack of the discretion which Is
an essential possession for the civil
head of this nation. His relations with
the war office, which have constantly
grown more strained, is an illustration
of the difficulties Into which he would
plunge the people who elected him as
president of this country. On dress oc
casions where gold lace, decorations, a
stiff, straight back and a proudly
borne head are the only essentials.
General Miles does the country proud;
but In affairs of moment he is not
heroic, poor man. He Is given to strik
ing attitudes and the pose of a martyr
suits him better than any other. That
pose does very well on the stage but it
is not becoming to the head of the
army. It is effeminate and weak.
Whining, complaining and tale-bearing
are the devices of weakness. To be
come president of the United States Is
a worthy ambition; but for the head of
one of the departments of the govern
ment to be plotting to succeed his
superior officer is, to speak in the mild
est terms, very bad form. Having
once shown that he 1s using his posi
tion to make grand stand plays for
votes, it Is not likely that either the
press or the public will be seriously
impressed by anything he may say
or do. So long as this is the case his
political intrigues and maneuvering can
not Injure the president or the army,
both of which he appears willing to
condemn without qualification.
Secretary Shaw and Women
In the first place a woman addressed
a letter to Secretary Shaw complain
ing of the way in which the custom
house officials treated American wo
men returning from Europe. The sec
retary is a new man and he has not
yet ledrned that a cabinet officer
should be impervious to all entreaties
from American citizens who do not
control a few thousand votes. He
therefore replied to the woman's letter
and asked her to specify the particular
and worst features of the treatment
accorded American women by the In
solent New York custom-house offi
cials. Soon afterward he himself. In
disguise and after the fashion of
Haroun al Raschid, visited the New
York custom house and was present
unrecognized at a number of the har
rowing scenes which follow the ar
rival of every tnins-Atlantlu steamer.
It Is said that the secretary's own
blood boiled. He is an inland man. He
is not accustomed to the ways of ports
or to seeing American citizens hustled
and Insulted and treated like smug
glers. There is nothing like the New
York custom-house anywhere else on
the face of the earth. The citizens of
any other country would long ago
have suppressed It together with the
officials who live on bullying and
bribes.
But we are quieted by the name of
freedom. We think we can assert our
selves in an extremity. Meunwhlle this
abuse of travelers continues.
The Boston women who protested
asked Dean Irwin of RadcltfTe college
to dm ft a reply for them. The letter
which she framed complains of the
small value of the clothing admitted
duty-free, of the provisions of the law
which require full duty to be paid on
clothing which has been altered or re
paired abroad In order to make It wear
longer, and of the common practice of
customs officials to require payment of
duty on the original cost of clothes
which have lost much of their value
by being worn. It requests a repeal of
the present law and a return to the
rule laid down in the McKlnley tariff.
If that cannot be done, It holds that
the evils- Inseparable from the present
law may still be mitigated and sug
gests that customs officers be allowed
discretion to accept the oatli which is
exacted from every passenger and dis
pense with the examination except
where smuggling Is suspected; that
since fine clothing is now often dam
aged by the examinations which are
now conducted, officials should be con
strained to handling trunks carefully,
and skilled packers should be employ
ed to repack them; that the customs
officers should be constrained to civil
behavior, and that an officer appoint
ed for that duty should be on the dock
to look after them and receive the re
monstrances of passengers who think
themselves misused. These are sensi
ble and very moderate suggestions;
and now that the women have taken
it up It is likely that a change can be
effected through the instrumentality of
a chivalrous, thoroughly American sec
retary, accustomed to justice as it is
administered In the courts of Iowa.
The attempt is worthy a resolution of
encouragement and approval by the
general federation of Women's clubs
which meets in Los Angeles on the
first, second and third of May.
&
Clastic Myths
Jupiter, Diana, Jack and Jill, the Man
In the Moon, Orion, the Great Bear, all
the personages of the skies elected by
the gods to shine forever have their
biographies told In this little book
called Classic iMyths Issued by Rand,
McNally & Co. The stories are told as
a witness relates facts, colorlessly, and
in reply to council's questions. A wit
ness is forever trying to escape from
the unbiased, the impersonal, the col
orless relation of facts. He Is bound to
suppress opinion which dyes them for
the Jury. 'From the tangle of overlap
ping traditions about the gods and the
constellations. Miss Mary Catherine
Judd has selected the most coherent
and collated them In this book for
children, illustrated by drawings from
the frieze of the Parthenon, from tombs
and from vases. At the back of
the book Is an excellent bibliography,
not long enough to discourage a child,
and a pronouncing Index, which greatly
simplifies the difficulties of the classic
names. Miss Judd presents a compre
hensive and varied collection of the
classic myths which age has woven In
to the literature of the world. It In
cludes stories from Greek, Norse, Ro
man, German, Russian and Finnish
sources. The illustrations, drawn by
Angus MacDonall, are line drawings of
statues and of the Imaginative pictures
made by the Greeks of their gods. The
book should be In every well-selected
child's library. It should be there while
yet the child believes In fairies. If it is,
in the inevitable and breathless hunt
every imaginative child conducts Into
the world unseen by grown-up people,
he will read these stories undeterred by
the suspicion that his parents or teach
ers are trying to teach him something
about what the ancient peoples be
lieved about the spirit of the winds, of
fire, of lightning, of water, et cetera.
Childhood makes everything its own.
We lose the power of preemption later
on. With the classic myths proved up,
the child has made an adequate prepar
ation for the study and appreciation of
literature. Miss Judd is principal of
the Lincoln school, Minneapolis.