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less. In view of the great service M.r. Gray as editor
is able to render the State his loss in his capacity
would amount to a calamity. The fact is. his friends
should rally to his aid and with their money, if nec
essary, put him back at the head of the great paper
with which he has served the people so faithfully and
well.
The Volunteer Guards—A Salute.
Great gratification is felt in Savannah over the
success of the encempment and maneuvers now on
at Fort Screven, in which the artillerymen of the
Volunteer Guards battalion of this city are partici
pants.
Xo praise is too high to bestow upon the em
ployers of the Guardsmen who gave leave of absence
to these young soldiers, in order that they may per
fect their skill in the handling of the heavy coast
defense guns, which are sure to be great factors in
determining the outcome of any future war with a
foreign country.
Manv business men have made considerable sac
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rifice and inconvenienced themselves no little bv
dispensing with the services of men belonging to this
military command at this time of the year. They
must look for recompense to a consciousness of a
patriotic duty well performed, and should be hon
ored accordingly by their fellow citizens.
In awarding due praise to all it should be remem
bered that the employers at home are not the only
citizens making a sacrifice in this worthy cause.
Many of the officers of the battalion are, themselves,
business and professional men and employers of
other num, as well as directors of important business
affairs in this community, and they are at Fort
Screven by reason of their willingness to serve the
community, the State and the Nation to the detri
ment of their own private interests and personal com
fort. All this applies, too, in varying degress, to the
privates in the ranks.
While all military maneuvers are of prime impor
tance, the drilling of the heavy artillery branch of
the service is most vital. Infantrymen and cavalry
men have access to their arms and accoutrements
at will in their armories and on the home drill
grounds. Not so the heavy artillerymen. Elsewhere
than in a fort they can do little more than acquire
a theoretical knowledge of what would be their
duties in war times. While this factor is not mini
mized, it is necessary that actual practice be had if
the great guns are to be manipulated with a pre
cision damaging to an enemy.
The Coast Artillery is the highest branch of the
military service, with the exception of the Engineer
Corps. In the regular army graduates from West
Point must stand well toward the top of their classes
to admit of their assignment to the artillery service.
THE REASON
In repelling a naval attack, occasions may, and
do, arise when a captain of a company of heavy
artillery becomes a higher factor in his country's
defense than a general of division.
That the Volunteer Guards are acquitting them
selves with great credit in the joint maneuvers with
the regulars is no surprise, but is, nevertheless, a
source of great pride to the City of Savannah.
The Sanguinary Battle in Florida.
“Tallahassee, Fla., May 16. —The torturing roll
of tumbrel and the ominous presence of canister
never created in time of war a more uncertain feel
ing among parties in conflict than the portent ions
primary of next Tuesday sends to the soul of the
contending candidates in Florida.”
So thunders the opening paragraph of a news
dispatch printed by a local daily newspaper sum
ming up the campaign in Florida. There are four
contestants for the nomination to the I'nited States
senatorship made vacant by the death of Senator
Mallory, quickly followed by the decease of his ap
pointed successor, the late William Janies Bryan.
Three men are out for the governorship.
The Tallahassee correspondent sends about two
and a half columns descriptive of the situation in
his state on the eve of the primary, but he sawed oft’
his story without taking us into his confidence as to
what all the red hot fight is about. Why the primary
is “portent ions, ” the deponent saith not. The near
est approach to enlightment on this point is the ob
servation that “It is not surprising that as the deci
sion of the first primary draws near, that the eon
testants should become more tense, more fervid,
more critical and more severe.” But why should
the seven worthy and dignified gentlemen become all
these peppery things, under the blazing heat of a
Tropical summer sun? For an answer, one turns
away in disappointment from the rather mild and be
nignant visages presented in the pictures of six can
didates which accompany the article. Study of
these countenances discloses nothing in particular
except the paradoxical circumstance of a total ab
sence of hirsute adornment from the phisiognomy of
the Hon. John S. Beard, one of the candidates for
I'nited States Senator. For this failure to live up
to his illustrious name, however, the lion. Beard
makes partial restitution by cultivating a luxuriant
growth on his top-piece, a la Paderewski.
Beard looked upon the safety razor and pro
nounced it good; the safety hair-clipper is yet to
come. Perhaps it is Candidate Beard's inconsist
ency on questions tonsorial that is in part account
able for the “fervor and tenseness” in Florida pol
itics.
Another matter calling for elucidation is the ab
. sence from the picture gallery of one face. The por-
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