The looking glass. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1894-????, April 07, 1894, Page 4, Image 4

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4 The Looking Glass M“0 lead some pow'r the yiftie gie us, To see oursel's as ithers see us." Published Weekly by THE LOOKING GLASS PUBLISHING CO. No. 8 South Broad St. SAMPLE COPIES ON APPLICATION. (PRESS OF CHAS. P. BYRD.) No subscribers received in Atlanta. Rates for out-of-town subscribers $2 00 per annum. Six months, §I.OO. The Looking Glass is on sale in Atlanta at all book stores, news stands and hotels. It may also be purchased on all local trains. Notice.—The Looking Glass positively de clines to guarantee to return unsolicited Mss. When stamps are enclosed such return will be undertaken, but no responsibility is assumed for failure of transmission. Gossip, sketches and pictures solicited, and if accepted, liberally paid for. Pictures to be submitted may be in any medi um the artist prefers. The Looking Glass has by far the largest" street sale in Atlanta. Advertising rates upon application. Address all contributions Editor Looking Gla«<s, and business correspondence to The Looking Glass Publishing Company. Why was it that Col. Breckinridge in the late trial denied so emphatically that love played any part in his relations with Miss Pollard? The assertion wiped away the faintest shadow of an excuse for his perfidy. Had he been animated by love instead of mere animalism, had he given his heart to this woman and in a moment of madness forgot honor and duty, the world would tacitly forgive him. As it is he will go down to history as a beastly old satyr devoid of any higher guiding power than his vile and unbridled passions. * * * A female reporter went into a lion’s cage and wrote up her experience for last Sunday’s New York World. There is nothing singular in her escape unscatdhed. No self-respecting lion would monkey with a World reporter. # * # Everybody who admires nerve must ad mire Tillman aside altogether from the right or wrong of the question. Few magistrates have the desperate courage—call it audacity, if you will—to take such a situation by the throat, and w’ere it not for the frightful un popularity of the cause, he would be lauded to the skies as one of the most re markable men of these times. With undeniable craftiness the opposition have made their watchword the sanctity of home. Home is a tender point with the American. He is always ready to fight for it, and if needs be, die for it, and this pas sionate devotion, which is the true spring, by the way, of our national greatness, is apt to render him blind to the merits of any cause that appeals to the home sentiment. It is altogether possible that the very peo ple who complain most loudly that their households have been invaded and who ap peal to their fellow citizens to protect the hearthstone, are people who have cared precious little for the sacredness of the fam ily circle in the past. No man who has sold whisky in his private house, or so conducted himself as to arouse suspicion that he is so doing, has any right to prate about the sacredness of home, and other and better men would do well to take a sober second thought before risking their lives in his behalf. •>_ Nevertheless, the dispensary law is odious, and justly so, and the presence of a horde of spies will rouse the resentment of any community, no matter how blameless and law abiding. An informer is inately detest able to an honest man, it makes no differ ence how laudable the end to which he is employed. It is human nature, and that’is something that laws cannot change or modify. In fact, it may be set down as a truism that any law that runs counter to our inborn prejudices is a bad law. It is this kind of an enactment that Gov. Tillman set about to enforce, and riot, revolt and bloodshed was a predestined consequence. The only thing about his course that can possibly be ad mired is, as has been said, his dogged cour martial law, to seize railroads, to establish a censorship over the telegraph, to strip re luctant soldiery of their uniforms and com missions, and to assume control of the en tire police power of a state, but Tillman has done all this and more unflinchingly. He certainly has the stuff in him of which dictators are made. But what will the denouement be ? It is midsummer madness to suppose that the will of the people can be bent to a law that has been enforced by brute strength and arms alone, and surely a gin mill on every corner were preferable to the incessant strife that has embroiled the state. It is a sad condition of affairs. Poor old South Carolina! * * # That was a modest request Mr. Norcross made of council the other night. He wants to put a suspension bridge over the pavement to facilitate the leisurly removal of his col lapsed corner. In behalf of diffident people we would like to know where Mr. Norcross buys his nerve-food. * * # The outrageous Dimmock ordinance for the purpose of driving out hucksters was very properly knocked in the head last Monday. If an ordinance could now be passed preventing the honest farmer from putting the big apples on top or measuring his thumb in a quart of strawberries things would be on a very happy basis. * * * It was really painful to observe the grim aces with which the administration element swallowed Pat Walsh. He was a bitter pill, and while Governor Northen’s choice was not openly condemned by the Cleveland press, if ever a man was damned by faint praise, that man is the Honorable Pat. The Journal’s construction of his statement that he “stands squarely on the democratic plat form’’ as a pledge of allegiance to the pres ident cannot but provoke a smile. Setting aside the question of which party wing real ly does stand squarely on the platform, it-is undeniable that Col. Walsh’s expression is a shibboleth of the anti-administration dem ocrats. At the same time the Journal ac cepted the nomination with more grace and tact than any of its contemporaries of the same way of thinking—doubtless for the simple reason that the Journal has more brains. j To the great mass of people the nomina tion was exceedingly satisfactory, and the Governor is being generally patted on the back. His announcement that he himself was out of the race, divests his choice of any thing like personal interest. He was not The Look ng Glass. “playing for position” as billiardists say, but at the same time the assumption that he y could have pre-empted the senatorship by a little diplomacy is extravagant. Governor Northen is a good man and an honest man; but his chances for the office were exceedingly microscopic. His withdrawal was the most adroit act of his career, and makes him a much stronger man than his candidacy would have done. Col. Walsh is certain to make a fine record in the Senate. He is bold and brainy, and the marked adaptability which is one of his characteristics will go a long ways toward taking the place of experience. Personally comment is superfluous: “ None know him but to love him.” “ None name him but to praise.” * * * That a citizen of Atlanta is obliged to apply to council for damages for being de tained in doors by a case of chicken pox diagnosed as small pox by the authorities is a pretty commentary on professional intelli gence. It is enough to make one fancy that the big vaccination fees had a great deal to do with the small pox scare. * s- * The City Solicitor ought to receive a sala ry. The present fee system is simply an in vitation to oppression. The sole and only purpose of many of the prosecutions in the City Court is to get a fee, and this fact was never better illustrated than in the recent raid on the slot machines. The warrants were sworn out b. the bailiff’s father—no doubt by request. It was shown that the parties running the machines had no inten tion of violating the law and the cases were dismissed on payment of costs. The Solic itor made a desperate fight for a fine which meant a fat fee and a terrible hardship to a score of business men. The whole thing smacked so largely of persecution that the Sheriff and his deputies returned their costs to the defendants, but it is almost superflu ous to add that the Solicitor hung on to his. The way that immoral houses are dealt with is a standing scandal. There is no pretense that they are suppressed, but when ever deemed advisable the keepers are dragged into court and mulct of a fine. The warrants in these cases are also made to order. Such a state of affairs is a shame and a disgrace. The Looking Glass is emphat ically in favor of the suppression of vice, but just as emphatically opposed to its being made pay tribute money to greedy officials. * * * The action of the Newberry rifles and other South Carlina companies in refusing to obey Gov. Tillman’s orders has been the subject of a great deal of discussion among our local militia, and opinion has been almost universal against the Palmetto State troops. That blind obedience is a soldier’s first duty is undeniable, and from that point of view the Carolina companies were everlastingly wrong, but there is more than that to be said on the subject. It can not be humanly ex pected that a body of troops strongly im pressed with the injustice of a law will shoot down their friends and neighbors in its sup port. That has been demonstrated over again. Years ago in the great labor riots at Pittsburg the local troops, strongly in sympathy with the strikers, turned out but simply fired over the heads of the mob. More recently in a similar state of affairs during the Southwestern railroad strike the home troops of St. Louis proved worse than useless. This is human nature, and under all the circumstances, it was better for the militia to openly declare itself than to take the field half hearted and prove worse than useless in actual service. This may not be in accordance with mili tary law, but it is common sense, and that is or ought to be the basis of all laws. * * * In a recent interview in the Constitution, Adjutant-General Kell reflected pretty se verely upon the South Carolina troops for failing to turn out when called upon by the Governor, and scouted the idea that Georgia soldiers would be similarly recreant to duty. “ No such case is supposable as long as Georgia soldiers are in their barracks,” he said. “ But, to answer you more seriously, the laws of Georgia provide for a strict court martial The officer in charge of the company refusing to obey such orders is called up before the court martial and tried.” If The Looking Glass remembers right ly, such a case was supposable when the plans were being laid to fortify our frontier and the Adjutant went especially to Savan nah to confer with the troops there to see whether they “ approved ” of the proposed action. They kindly agreed to turn out and help save the state from the disgrace of a slugging match, and the call was thereupon made. 7t- -TV -X- Why not abolish that dismally stupid in stitution known as the coroner’s jury? It has long since ceased to exist in many other states and has absolutely no excuse for be ing on earth except to furnish a livlihood to certain chronic jurymen. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred an inquest is an ex pert inquiry into obscure causes of death. Such an examination requires a skillful phy sician, and the laymen jurors know as little of the means by which he reaches his con clusion as they do of the man in the moon. They simply look wise, keep their mouths shut, sign the verdict and draw their pay. If a jury essays to make the investigation on its own hook, it usually makes a bull of it. There is a case on record in Chatham Co. where a verdict of death from causes unknown was returned on a man who fell out of fourth story window, and a Florida jury who found a negro hanging to a tree near Gainesville last winter, decided that he died from exposure. The jury fees are a considerable item of expense to the people from one year's end to the other and the sum might well be saved. The coroner does all the work any how, and the balance of the machine is a useless and ridiculous encumberence. Which one of our legislators will distin guish himself by introducing a bill to do away with these costly parasites ? * * * About the only alarming effect that Coxey’s army has produced so far is the influence in has exerted on other cranks. There are hundreds of hair-brained indivi duals everywhere who need only such a demonstration as this to bring them to the surface. They are being heard from in all directions. One proposes to organize a young woman’s army, another announced that the Lord was about to smite congress and very appropriately fixed the day of smittng on April Ist. The queerest inci dent, however, is the joining of Coxey’s gang by Alexander Childs, of Pittsburg. Childs is the nephew of Frick, Carnegie’s partner, and one would suppose that all his traditions were against a labor uprising. He is a mild religious crank, very rich, and en tertains what are vaguely termed “ advanced views.”