Saturday Evening Mail, Volume 29, Number 11, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 10 September 1898 — Page 6

PHRASESTHATCATCH

EPIGRAMS WHICH HAVE MOLDED NATIONAL POLICIES.

Blaine a Conspicuous Victim of Catch Phrase* Statesmen Made Famous by Slips of the Tongue—^ottoes In War and Politico.

[Special Correspondence.]

WASHINGTON, Sept 6.—Good Amur leans have a weakness for catch phrases, though just what makes a catch phrase catch is likely to remain among those things no fellow can find out. Volumes had been spoken and written appn the Cuban situation and the loss of our battleship before an undistinguished citi zen of aNew York town said in a letter to a metropolitan journal, "We must remember tbe Maine." Tho saying caught first the paper, which made of it a slogan, loudly cried and far sent. It reached even to Manila, where Dew-

"WHERE WAS I AT?"

ey's ships went into action signaling one to another, "Remember the Maine!" Beyond question it had as much to do with firing tho popular heart for war as had Captain Lawrence's famous saying, "Don't give up the ship!" That was back in tho days when England still claimed tho right to search American vessels and impress from them British sailors. Captain Lawrence, resisting search of his ship, tho Chesapeake, fought her until he was mortally wounded. Ho died while sho was still in action, praying those about him with his last breath, "Don't give up the ship!" Though the Chesapeake struok her colors, beforo the war of 181 a was dono Lawrence and the American navy had been amply avenged.

It is not astonishing that toward forming popular conviction a grain of epigram is worth a ton of argument, but many famous catch phrases have no savor of epigram. Witness ilr. Webster Flanigan'a "That's what we are here for—to got offices," and Mr. Cobb of Georgia's immortal if well worn query, "Mr. Speaker, where was I at?"

Mr. Cobb will live in the thought of his compeers when 100—yea, 500—likewise overtaken with an induced lack of memory, go noteless and unquoted. Full many an honorable M. C. equally fatuous bluehes unseen and wastes his sweetness on the desert air of The Congressional Record. It must be the stars in their course fight for their lucky children, else there would bo more of our lawmakers to thrust tliemsolves on greatness, as it were, in tho twinkling of a word.

Back in tho vivid if troublous reconstruction times ono of those who were irreverently denominated carpetbag statesmen woke and found himself famous through the simple coinage of a word. Ho had been attacked upon the floor of tho house, not outright, but with polished and galling irony, by a member of his own party, then wholly dominant. No doubt ho was a trifle dazed by tho greatness of opportunity when ho arose in his placo to protest against "tho insinuendos" of the other gentle man. The word caught the fancy, tickled the ear of all tho newspaper folk who heard it. Each and several they made a note of it and sent it broadcast over tho country. Result, a natiou-wide laugh characteristically American. It mattered nothing that tho laughers themselves at conven'ence "set all the nine parts of speech at defiance." They were none the less mirthful over a congressman's hazy commingling of insinuate and iunuendo.

If .Tames G. Blaine had never spoken of Roscoe Gonkling's "turkey gobbler strut," ho might have been president of these United States. Mr. Blaine, about the most brilliant statesman of three decades, was first to last & victim of phrases. Two from the famous Mulligan letters, in themselves inuoonous, but capable of sinister interpretation, harmed him as much as tbe implacable enmity of Conkliug He might have been nominated and elected in place of Garfield had there not been fear of the effect of "barn these letters" and "I shall be no deadhead," then current in all men's months. When at last he did receive the coveted nomination, there •was Burchard to say, "You stand opposed to the forces of rum, Romanism and rebellion," and thereby lose him New York and with it the election. "I fought treason in the south. Swinging round the circle, I am now fighting it in the north," said Andrew Johnson before tho famous struggle which precipitated his impeachment. Humorists, so called, whose idea of humor was that it lay in bad spelling, rang changes innumerable on "swingin round the cirkle," aud bis partisans exploited another Johnson saying equally pithy, "I have no ammunition to waste on deod ducks."

Oddly enough the era of the civil war set afloat few widely current catch phrases. Perhaps the good folk focuid

other things than minting them to do and endure. Possibly also existence went at such a gait there was not opportunity to listen for them. Then, too, the innumerable Lincoln stories, ever changing, ever fresh, almost sufficient ly titilated the popular mind. But th^ 20 years just preceding that titanic conflict were fertile indeed. Almost every considerable public utterance supplied something upon which the public mouth might take hold. Now it was Seward's "irrepressible conflict"—between free labor and slave—now his "higher law," a moral law setting at naught the constitution so far as that supreme law recognized and protected slave property. They crystallized re publican faith and practice, theretofore fluid. Subscribing enthusiastically to the higher law doctrine, Horace Greeley wrote, "The constitution of the United States is a league with death and oovenant with hell."

Southern members were not behind in matching such scorn and railings. "I will call the roll of my slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill monument," said Robert Toombs of Georgia upon the floor of the house. In so saying he furnished ammunition to the abolition and colonization societies, woith a good many thousand votes. Beyond question the south of that time dominated in national affairs, not through a preponder anco of sectional ability, but because of a social and industrial system which inclined its foremost men to undertake publio life with a fine scorn of pecuniary advantage.

As secretary of state William L. Marcy stands first among equals. He made enemies and treaties alike the de light of his partisans. He did not blunder, brag or threaten, but showed himself a level headed statesman through out a somewhat blustering time, yet he is oftenest recalled for his application of "To the victors belong the spoils" to the exigencies of place holding. Doubtless many another of his predecessors had read tho Roman military law. Not one of them had thought of so pithily fitting it to the case of eager followers. Removals without cause other than a political revulsion had been often made. It remained for Marcy to dignify the practice with a classio legal maxim.

When tbe Mexican war had been fought and won. almost doubling the national domain, Thomas H. Benton perhaps wished he had not before the conflict in speaking of American soldiers, adjured the Mexicans to "welcome them with hospitable hands to bloody graves." That was in the heat of party debate. Benton was always of a bitter tongue, and opposition to the war was a sort of party shibboleth. By clinging fast to it Henry Clay sacrificed his best hope of -the presidency. He lacked the far sight and the foresight of Andrew Jackson, who wrote even against his own favorite and party heir, Van Buren, "It is certain that no man can be elected president who opposes the annexation of Texas at any cost."

Randolph of Roanoke's characterization of Clay as "a combination of the Puritan and the blackleg"' was not wiped out by their abortive duel. The saying stuck in men's minds, as such sayings have a trick of doing. Though we may not have in the United States anything which comes near the "Nonconformist conscience" of our cousins oversea there is an element which demands' that the man who receives its suffrages shall not be impecoable, but seem so.

Harking back to the reconstruction epoch, Thad Stevens said more than once over carpetbagger congressional contests: "Oh, they are both rascals! The only quostion is, Which is our rascal?" The saying is one which has much more virtue than ap-

pears on its face. It is to be apprehended that many weightier contests are settled out of hand upon exactly the same principle. It was when so called Liberal Republicanism running riot under Grant had given the house to the De-

"WHICH 18 OUR D——D RASCAL?"

mocracy that Zacharv Chandler fulminated from his cabinet seat, "A man had better be in h—1 without a fan than in a Republican cabinet with a Democratic congress."

With respect to presidential phrasemaking there is a certain parity in ualikeness between Grover Cleveland and Andrew Jackson. Two continents have heard of Mr. Cleveland's "innocuous desuetude." Beyond all question the words came from the presidential mind through the presidential pen, whereas Andrew Jackson may or may not have indorsed a bundle of documents after careful examination "Oil Korrect." Notoriously with Old Hickory the pen was not mightier than tbe sword. His name is, however, appended to some things that are mighty good reading. Whether or no be wrote those things is altogether beside the mark. The several thousand Americans who in coarse of each business day "O. K." a great many more thousand things should reasonably rejoice that ,he was even thought to have orthographically tbe courage of his limitations.

MABTHA MCCULLOCH

WlLLLUEB.

mmmm

JAPANESE MUSIC

There's Art In It That Cannot Be Analyzed by Occidentals.

To one who never heard it it is impossible to give a definite idea of Japanese music, and to one who hears it for the first time it must either repel or strangely attract, for its fantastic intervals and fractional tones demand a totally new sense of musical appreciation and call into being anew set of musical sensations. It is as if a hitherto closed door between sense and spirit had been suddenly thrown open. One feels that if reincarnation be true, one might through this door alone remember and reconstruct those vanished existences. Only in the tones of their own unguisu, a bird which has but three notes, have I heard anything so occult

Japanese music is like Japanese art, which, with its unperceived spirit, sense and symbolism, its strange method of brush handling, might seem merely grotesque at first, but which gradually reveals to the initiated eye mysteries within mysteries of artistic form and perception, until presently one finds oneself encompassed by a new art world, where technic is subordinated to feeling and whose finest effects are obtained through the art of omission. As, for instance, in the greatest paintings of Fujiyama, the sacred mountain itself is discovered to be the bare, white, unpainted silk, as if color and line could be but the boundaries and outer confines of pure isolated idea. So in Japanese music, its methods are not ours, its climaxes come in crashes of silence, in sustained and soundless pause, the notes subordinated to a silent something, an inner sense, which, while restraining or even repressing sound, is. the very ecstasy of musical sensation.

In vain we attempted to analyze this subtle effect, to reduce it to the terms of our musical consciousness. It defied and eluded us as spirit must always defy and elude sense, and we perforce contented ourselves with following the strange, rounded, isolated notes, sustaining ourselves breathlessly on its wonderful muses and yielding to the irregular cadenced charm of the singer, whose face, at first so unremarkable, seemed to grow of a shining effulgence as she thus interpreted to us an unknown world.—Washington Star.

IN LEAGUE WITH MAGIC.

Some Heathens Who Did Good Missionary Work at a Pump.

Lobengula, the late king of tho Matabele of South Africa, was afraid of Rev. E. Carnegie, an English missionary at Hope Fountain, several miles from Bulawayo. The Matabele warriors, on the other hand, looked with suspicion on the missionary and all his works, but they knew better than to molest the friend of their king.

Time after time in passing the mission house they noticed a force pump at work, supplying water for the family and for irrigating the garden. Not understanding what it was for, their untutored minds concluded it was some sort of magic. It was "intagati," or bewitched, and they watched to see how it was managed that they might turn the white man's magic against himself.

One moonlight night a party of picked warriors repaired to the bank of the stream where the pump was. On trying it they were jubilant to find that two men at either handle could do the trick. Turn and turn about they kept the pump going for two hours, determined that the missionary should have all the magic he wanted and a balance in hand.

Then, exhausted, they went home ward, ignorant of the fact that they had filled the missionary's tank to overflowing. His good wife hoped that a similar supply of "magic" might be furnished every week. New York Mail and Express.

Artificial Cream.

A cooking teacher tells of a manufactured cream that is worth knowing about in emergencies, when the real article is not to be had. It is made from the whites of two eggs, beaten stiff, with a tablespoonful of sugar and a teaspoonful of cornstarch. Half a cup of cold milk is added by degrees and all beaten together very stiff. A cup of milk is boated over the fire, with a small butter ball melted in it This is allowed to come just to the boiling point, when it is removed to a cooler part of the stove and tbe beaten egg mixture added. When it has all thickened very slightly to about the consistency of thick cream, it is taken off and strained and cooled. This may be used as cream for serving with fresh or preserved fruits, but it is needless to add it will not whip.—New York Post.

literature on a Ferryboat.

During the last seven days the following novels were read on a Hoboken ferryboat by shopgirls on their way to work: "Poor, but Beautiful,""All For Love of a Fair Face," "When His Love Grew Cold," "Mrs. Hathaway's Revenge," "The Story of a Blighted Love," "Risen or, Back as From tbe Dead."—New York Commercial Advertiser.

British Navy Salates.

A salute in the British navy between two ships of equal rank is made by firing an equal number of guns. If the vessels are of unequal rank, the superior fires the fewer rounds. A royal salute consists of (1) in firing 21 great guns, (3) in the officers lowering their sword points and (3) in dipping the colors.

Phillips Brooks once said thai "the shortness of life is bound up with its fullness. It is to him who is most active, always thinking, feeling, working, caring for people, that life seems short. Strip a life empty and it will seem long enough."

The finest complexions in tbe world are said to be in tbe Bermudas. This is accounted for by the fact that the inhabitants live chiefly on onions,

TEKBE IIATJTE SATURDAY EVENING MAIL, SEPTEMBER 10, 1898.

Boucicault and His Hair.

Boucicault for a number of years used to dye the little fringe of hair he Ltfd, and it generally took on all the hues of the rainbow, mucb resembling Tittlebat Titmouse's experience in coloring his hair.

I was standing in front of the Union Square theater one day after rehearsal with the late Charles R. Thome, Jr., and Joe Polk, writes Owen Fawcett, and we were arguing the question who should "buy," when along came Boucicault, as chipper as ever. Of course he must stop, ask all the news, and have a chat, for he was a most entertaining man and well worth listening to. On his preparing to leave Polk said, "Mr. Boucicault, I do not wish to insult you, but I wish to congratulate you on one thing." "Not a bit of it, my boy," said Bducy. "What is it, Polk?" "I see that you have given over dyeing your hair or what little hair you had, and you do not know how much better it makes you look." "Yes," said Boucicault "I have found out one thing, and that is in all the years I have been foolish enough to paint my hair I was only deceiving one person, and that one was myself. Good day, boys."—Detroit Free Press.

Spanish Cruelty.

The cruelty of the Spaniard, or rather his callousness, his recklessness of the lives of others, and even of his own, is a mediaeval and oriental survival, says Irving Babbitt in The Atlantic, and then, too, there underlies the Spanish temperament I know not what vein of primitive Iberian savagery. Mme. d'Aulnoy relates that on a certain day of the year it was customary for court gallants to run along one of the main streets of Madrid, lashing furiously their bare shoulders, and when one of these penitents passed the lady of his choice among the spectators he bespat tered her with his blood as a special mark of his favor.

Insensibility to the suffering of animals, though general in Spain, is not any greater so far as my own observation goes, than in the other Latin coun tries. Po'ssibly mediaeval religion in so exalting man above other creatures, in refusing to recognize his relation to the rest of nature, tended to increase this lack of sympathy with brute creation. The Spanish peasant belabors his ass for the same reasons that Malebranche kick ed his dog—because he has not learned to see in it a being organized to feel pain in the same way as himself.

Slow Eating May Ilo Bad.

According to Tho Journal of Mental and Nervous Diseases, slow eating is as bad as fast eating. "The important point is not that we eat slowly or fast, but that when we do eat we chew with energy. Of course where the haste is due to some mental anxiety this may injuriously inhibit the secretions. Slow eating begets a habit of simply mumbling the food without really masticating it, while the hurried eater is inclined to swallow his food before proper mastication. Hence hurried eating is bad, but rapid mastication is advantageous. It concentrates our energies on the act in question, and hence more thoroughly accomplishes it. Moreover, energetic chewing stimulates trjie secretion of saliva in tbe most favorable manner. These various points are so commonly misunderstood, at least by the laity, that they demand our frequent attention."

The Gloved Pasha.

Mustaphn Pasha Fehmi, prime minister of Egypt, decorated by Queen Victoria with tho grand cross of the Order of St. Michael aud St. George, is known throughout Egypt as the gloved pasha, owing to the fact that no one has ever seen his left hand bared since the day two and twenty years ago when, as one of the chamberlains of the ]ate Khedive Ismail, he helped his colleague, Salrari Pasha, to strangle the Egyptian minister of finance at the close of a supper party given by the wicked old khedive on board his steam yacht, lying at anchor in tho Nile at Cairo, just off the palace of Gezereh.

SAVE THE BABY. I A mother will risk her own life many times over, to save her babe from the horrors of hydrophobia. There are graver perils from which a mother should protect her child. A mad dog is a rarity, but thousands of children die daily because of the seeds of disease implanted in their little bodies Rebirth.

A woman may insure the health of her babe if she sees to it that she is thoroughly strong and healthy tn a womanly way during the period of testation. Dr.

Pierce's Favorite Prescription cures all weakness and disease of the delicate and important organs that sustain the burden of maternity. It makes them strong, healthy, vigorous and elastic. It banishes the squeamish spells of the expectant period and makes baby's introduction to the world easy and nearly painless. It rids maternity of peril. It insures the newcomer's health ana an ample supply of nourishment. It transforms sickly, nervous, fretful, despondent, childless women into healthy, happy, helpful, amiable wives and mothers. Over

Serived

3,000 women have testified to the benefits from this* marvelous medicine. It dees away with the necessity for the embarrassing examinations ana local treatment upon which mast physicians insist. It substitutes certainty for the doubtful treatment of obscure physicians, who seldom correctly diagnose these troubles. All medicine dealers sell it, and Dr. Pierce will cheerfully give free advice to ailing women who write him.

Scores of women who have been permanently cored of obstinate and dangerous diseases by *h** great medicine, have permitted their names, addresses, experiences and photographs to be printed in Dr. Pierce's Common Sense Medical Adviser. This book is free and contains 1006 pages, telling the home-treatment for most ai«ww»«. Send 2i one-cent stamps, to cover wiling only, for paper covered copy.

V.

Up I Up! Up-to-date

Dewey Americanizing the Philippines*

Wherever Battle Ax goes it pacifies and satisfies everybody—and there are more men chewing

Battie%

PLUG

W

to-day than any other chewing tobacco ever made. The popularity of Battle Ax is both national and international. You find it in Europe:—you find it in Maine:—you find it in India, and you'll find it in Spain (very soon).

Our soldiers and sailors have already taken it to Cuba and the Philippines I Are you chewing it

pemember the name when you buy again. im——MH—Hit

B. G. HUDNUT, President, WILLART) KIDDER. VIco-Presldont. G. A. CONZMAN. Cashier.

Vigo County National Bank

Capital $150,000. Surplus $30,000.

EXCHANGE

624 Main Street. TERRE HAUTE, IND,

ri filing'

A'Moore

"Wlien You Order Your

Get the very best, and that is the product of the

TERRE HAUTE BREWING CO.

LOOK HERE!

If you are going to build, what is the use of going to see three or four different kinds of contractors? Why not go and see

A. FROMMB,

General Contractor

416 8TEBET,

As h« employs the best of mechanics in Brick Work, Plastering, Carpentering, Painting, etc., and will furnish yon plans and specifications if wanted.

S.L.PBNNER,i S

isr

& Langen'i

BUILDERS' HARWARE, FURNACES and FIRST-CLASS TINWOR

8TBEIH3T