tend to that little formality themselves. So long as the old darkey prayed the good Lord to send him a "turkey he went supperless to bed; but when he prayed the good Lord to send him after the glorious bird of Christmastide there were soon feathers in his backyard and a sweet savor in his kitchen. The Moslem wants the Deity to take vengeance on dissenters; the Christian believes the Lord has commissioned him as the instrument of divine wrath. The first prays for the "turkey," the latter goes after it. Talmage points the finger of scorn at the " fanatical Moslem " while boasting that the American Protestants are descendants of the Puritans. When we undertake to punish the Turks for their religious intolerance we should place upon our banners portraits of Cotton Mather and John Calvin. It would be eminently appropriate to carry the ashes of Servetus as a hoodoo, forge into swords the irons with which our Puritan ancestors bored the tongues of Quakers, and hang Abdul Hamid with the same rope used in the execution of the Salem witches! Talmage declares in one breath that the Turks will not allow the Christians to build churches, and in the next that America alone has sent 550 missionaries to that country, and that they have 35,000 children enrolled in their Sunday-schools. The fact of the matter is that Turkey is a semi-barbarous nation which is passing through the same unhappy ordeal that disgraced Western Europe some years ago, when Protestants and Catholics, Churchmen and Nonconformists were cutting each other's throats in the name of a pitying Christ, while all united in plundering and persecuting "God's Chosen People." The Armenian Moslems and their Christian neighbors are murderous religious fanatics, as were our own forefathers. Barbarians are ever theological bigots. How best to deal with Armenia is a difficult problem indeed, for experience has taught us that

even the sword will not keep God-intoxicated ignorami under control. The Moslem and Christian cannot peacefully inhabit the same territory under any government until both become civilized. Sending missionaries to countries like Armenia to divide the people into hostile churches is little short of a crime. All the blood that has been shed in that unhappy land because of religious dissensions is chargeable to this vicious intermeddling, and to such sermons as that worked off by the Brooklyn blatherskite. Such utterances inflame the hatred of the Mohammedans and encourage the Christians to treat the religion of their neighbors with contempt. Perhaps if we would muzzle such war-preachers and treat the Moslems with some respect, instead of forcing our mischief-making missionaries upon them at the sword's point, the bloody orgies in Armenia would cease. Christian Europe has been trying for half a century to bluff the Turk into religious toleration, and has only succeeded in goading him into greater atrocities. It might be a good plan for it to try the effect of example upon the followers of Allah. We can scarce expect the Moslem to have much respect for the Christian faith so long as its chief exponents build warships and keep colossal standing armies for the express purpose of butchering their own theological brethren. We can scarce expect him to entertain kindly feelings for a people whose preachers advise his utter extermination and the dismemberment of his Empire.

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SPEAKING OF TEXAS.

THE ICONOCLAST receives a great many letters from people in distant states making inquiries about Texas in general and Waco in particular. Several have asked if Waco is

incorporated, and others inquired if it is situated in an organized county. The impression appears to be general among our trans-Ohio cousins that the Geyser City is simply a trading station on the borders of civilization, where the "Apostle" has located for the conversion of the Indians that the principal products of the state are cacti and general cussedness, cowboys and post-bellum colonels. The ICONOCLAST is not an immigration journal; still it doesn't mind pausing a moment in its missionary labors among the benighted ministers, to ladle out a little valuable information to those anxious inquirers who neglect to enclose stamp for reply. And I will preface my dissertation on Texas by stating that I care never a copper whether or no it acquires another inhabitant or an extra dollar of outside capital during the next ten centuries. Experience has clearly demonstrated, that while "development "-for which all patriotic citizens are expected to daily pray-is an excellent thing for the few, it puts no pie in the dinner-pail of the many. Forty years ago we had no millionaires in Texas, and we had no mendicants. The cayuse was the common method of annihilating space, while frijoles and cornbread, with a drink of red licker out of a stone-jug, was the usual diet. Now the rich man rides in a Pullman car while the poor man hoofs it down the soulless corporation's right-o'-way and turns out for freight trains; the former dines on pate de foie gras and washes it down with champagne served in cut glass, while the latter takes up in his belly-band a notch, absorbs a little pure spring water from a pint cup and becomes a Populist. Merchants and professional men have multiplied, but their incomes average less than under the old regime. Land has risen in value, but has benefited nobody except the owners, who have thereby acquired the power to exact rent. As the state has developed, the battle of

life for the toilers has become more bitter. Cheap land means high wages and a proud and spirited people; high priced land means low wages and the decline of the populace into industrial peonage. Looking at the matter from the stand-point of a workingman I am inclined to applaud Ox-Cart John's ipse dixit that railroads and immigration do not confer an unmixed blessing upon a community. Still, if people persist in coming to Texas, I shall not order out the Baylor cadets to repel the peaceful invasion. Notwithstanding General Sheridan's opinion, there are worse places than Texas. "Little Phil" was probably cooped up in a Prohibition precinct when he declared Hell to be preferable as a place of permanent residence. Texas is a place where every prospect pleases, and even man is not wholly vile, despite the fact that about one-half the inhabitants have partisan politics on the brain, while the remainder are troubled with religious pains in the abdominal regions. There was a time in Texas when a man was barred from the social holy of holies unless he could prove that his grandfather voted for Old Hickory, and that the family had been taking its Democracy straight ever since; but we are gradually becoming more liberal. Our very governors have been known to take a cocktail at the expense of men who insisted that Hays was not a usurper. We are progressing slowly but surely, and I am credibly informed that there are several places in the State where a man may steer a small grocery store or butcher shop clear of bankruptcy and at the same time question the supernal wisdom of the Protestant priesthood-even worship God in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience if he does so in private and forbears proselytizing. These, of course, are but fragrant oases in the mighty desert of hide-bound dogmatism, swept by the blighting theological boycott and the fierce simoon of re

SO

ligious bigotry; but the little leaven may—in a century or -leaven the whole lump. I will say to those who have applied to the ICONOCLAST for information that they might do much worse than come to Texas. They can find here any kind of climate and soil they care to call for. Alpine claims to have had a snow-storm in July, and the musical hum of the mosquito ushers in the glad new year at Galveston, and rises, like a pæan of praise, at Brownsville on Washington's birthday. While the norther in the Panhandle is taking an inventory of every bone in the human body, the Bohemian Club at Houston will be dallying in the shade of magnolia trees and conning its catechism. The soil in some sections is best adapted to the production of mesquite beans and mule-eared rabbits, while in others it is so prolific that an old corset plowed under will develop into a New Woman, and a pair of discarded suspenders if properly planted and "hilled," will produce a candidate for Congress. Texas is not exactly a terrestrial Paradise; albeit that is not my fault. Both Dr. Cranfill and myself have done our level best to establish here a new and greater Garden of Eden. Still, the homeseeker who has nothing but a pair of spavined mules, a red wagon, a vigorous appetite and a fervent desire to hustle united to a penchant for attending strictly to his own business, might prowl around in this vale of tears, as we preachers call it, a long time before striking another place that offers him the same opportunity to roost under his own vine and fig tree, with none to molest him or make him afraid. If he is looking for an urban location he will find Waco a progressive little city, situate on the tawny Brazos at the head of navigation. Its chief institutions are the ICONOCLAST, the Little Giant, Wherein Riggins and Baylor University. One can readily see that a city possessing such a combination of purity and genius is bound to pro